I

t was simply a coincidence that less than one month after President Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo called for a new global economic order that is widely open to emerging countries and a reform of multilateral development institutions, World Bank president Jim Yong-kim made a four-day visit here, starting Tuesday.

Speaking to leaders and officials from more than 100 countries from Asia and Africa in Jakarta late last month, Jokowi asserted that '€œthe view that the world'€™s economic problems can be solved only by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund [IMF] and the Asian Development Bank [ADB] is an obsolete one'€.

Certainly Kim'€™s visit, the first he has made to the country after taking over the World Bank leadership in July 2012, will be a good opportunity for Jokowi to elaborate upon what he meant by a new global economic order and what kind of reform is required of the global financial architecture to benefit emerging economies as Indonesia.

The World Bank is predictably an easy target of attacks given the conflicting demands from its 184 country members. The bank is mostly active among developing countries, which make up the majority of its members, but its decision- and policy-making is perceived as controlled by the few developed countries, notably the US and European nations, who make up the majority shareholders.

The perception of the bank being the purveyor of the policies of the developed countries, especially the US, is therefore unavoidable, especially because together with the IMF, both are headquartered in Washington, and the US has the privilege of appointing the bank'€™s president.

Still, we should be magnanimous enough to acknowledge that the World Bank was the first multilateral development bank to help rescue Indonesia from virtual bankruptcy in the mid-1960s immediately after the fall of then president Sukarno.

But relations between Indonesia and the World Bank have been through their share of ups and downs, especially after the Indonesian government, buoyed by the country'€™s substantial economic progress, sometimes grew uncomfortable or even irritated by the bank for '€œpreaching'€, rather than acting as a partner on an equal footing.

Indeed, with annual lending resources of more than US$25 billion and the single-largest pool of development thinkers of any organization in the world, the bank'€™s executives, many of whom are from developed countries, face the strong temptation to act, however unintentionally, as arrogant economic advisers.

But instead of further bashing the World Bank and devoting too much energy to deliberating a new world economic order '€” a very broad concept that is open to endless debates '€” it is better for President Jokowi to focus his talks with Kim on seeking better, more effective ways for Indonesia to tap into the bank'€™s brain trust; its huge pool of wide-ranging knowledge and experience on all issues of development.