W

idely known as a champion of infrastructure development, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo took a break from his usual zeal and instead choose to talk about happiness at a seminar on the sidelines of the 2018 Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Group in Nusa Dua, Bali, on Thursday.

“If you’re in search for happiness, then you have come to the right place here in Indonesia,” said Jokowi, before hundreds of participants of the Tri Hita Karana Forum.

“We may not be the richest, we may not be the most advanced [country] but it turns out we are among the happiest people in the world,” he said, to a rounds of applause from the audience.

Jokowi was referring to the 41st Annual Global End of Year Survey by Gallup International announced at the beginning of the year, which ranked Indonesians at the top of the Hope Index — a measure of optimism on the survey.

In an apparent attempt to persuade participants to extend their stays on the resort island after the end of the annual meetings, Jokowi encouraged the audience to travel across the country to find out why Indonesians had such a positive outlook.

“Maybe you can travel around the country a little and spend some of your dollars to try to find out,” said Jokowi, while hinting that the Tri Hita Karana philosophy may reveal secrets to the happiness of Indonesians.

Tri Hita Karana refers to a Balinese philosophy that underlines the three major ways to attain happiness, specifically through harmonious relationships with people, nature and God.

The forum, which takes the theme of “Blended Finance and Innovation for Better Business Better World” this year, aims to demonstrate the leadership role of Indonesia in blended financing to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), blended finance is the use of development finance and philanthropic funds to mobilize private capital flows to emerging and frontier markets, resulting in positive results for both investors and communities.

Prior to the annual meetings, government-backed infrastructure financing company PT Sarana Multi Infrastruktur (SMI) launched on Oct. 5 the SDG Indonesia One, a platform to bring together public and private funds to be utilized for SDG-related projects in Indonesia.

The platform has attracted US$ 2.34 billion in private funds to finance various green projects. PT SMI had identified 31 projects worth $4 billion that were ready to be financed through blended financing.

Jokowi said blended finance would help alleviate poverty and other development problems, while expecting the forum would to attract billions of US dollars in private funding to achieve the SDGs.

More than 30 projects, investments and initiatives were launched during the forum, which ended on Thursday, while a number of deals were signed on Thursday, including an ecotourism development project in Lake Toba, North Sumatra, worth $ 400 million.

The two-day forum was estimated to be able to mobilize $10 billion in private funding for SDGs-related projects in Indonesia.

Earlier on Thursday, Villages, Disadvantaged Regions and Transmigration Minister Eko Putro Sandjojo said the government had been utilizing the blended financing scheme in its Featured Products in Rural Areas (Prukades) initiative, which aims to boost the economic potential of villages by granting access for locally made products to a wider market.