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'Activist' WB chief pledges more funds for RI
High-level talks: President Joko âJokowiâ Widodo (right) talks with World Bank (WB) president Jim Yong Kim (center), who is accompanied by WB vice president for East Asia Pacific Region Axel van Trotsenburg (second left) and country director for Indonesia Rodrigo Chaves (left), about the partnership between Indonesia and the WB at the State Palace on Wednesday
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span class="inline inline-center">High-level talks: President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo (right) talks with World Bank (WB) president Jim Yong Kim (center), who is accompanied by WB vice president for East Asia Pacific Region Axel van Trotsenburg (second left) and country director for Indonesia Rodrigo Chaves (left), about the partnership between Indonesia and the WB at the State Palace on Wednesday. Presidential Office/Agus Suparto
World Bank (WB) president Jim Yong Kim has promised to make more funds available to Indonesia during a meeting with President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo at the State Palace, during which he described himself as an 'activist' who supports calls for reforms in global financial institutions.
The WB offered Jokowi an opportunity to tap as much as US$12 billion over the next three to four years for various development projects from infrastructure to education, Kim said after the meeting on Wednesday.
It was Kim's first visit to Indonesia since he was appointed the president of the bank in 2012.
The visit, as well as the offer for more funding, came after Jokowi openly criticized international lenders such as the WB, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), for playing what he called an 'obsolete' role in the fast-changing global economy.
Despite the criticisms, the WB was 'absolutely committed' to strengthening its partnership with Indonesia while at the same time respecting the country's economic policy-making and project design, Kim said.
'Indonesia is a very sophisticated country; they don't need the World Bank to tell them what to do,' he said.
Meanwhile, Kim said he fully understood the criticisms of global financial institutions ' admitting he was once an opponent of the WB himself.
In front of reporters, Kim recounted a story of how he, in his youth, once joined a movement called '50 Years is Enough' to protest the existence of the WB during the organization's 50th anniversary in 1994.
'One of the things I expressed to President Widodo that I don't think he knew is the fact that I am an activist,' said Kim.
While acknowledging that reorganization efforts had been a 'very complicated and very sensitive discussion' among 188 member governments of the WB, Kim noted that such reforms were now progressing significantly under his leadership.
'My conversation with President Widodo was to simply say: We heard you, we know that the world is changing; we know that organizations have to evolve, and I simply informed him of all the changes that I have taken in the organization over the last two-and-half-years that I think most people don't understand,' he said.
Kim's visit to the State Palace occurred amid the growing influence of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), with Indonesian government officials already showing an inclination to tap funds from the China-led ban, which is seen as a strong rival to the WB.
Finance Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro has described US' criticisms of the AIIB as 'unfair', and has even stated that Indonesia might grant funding responsibility for certain government projects to the AIIB.
Rodrigo Chaves, WB country director for Indonesia, said there remained major opportunities for accelerating infrastructure and human capital development in Indonesia, and said the country may need 'substantial' financing to close those gaps.
'The World Bank Group supports Indonesia's efforts to close these gaps and welcomes additional support from all multilateral development banks ' including the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank,' he said in recent press release.
