T

he Dutch government will continue to provide a grant program for Indonesia when the current grant package ends this year, a visiting Dutch minister said Monday.

The Dutch State Secretary for the European Union and Development Cooperation, Ben Knapen, said in Jakarta on Monday that the next three-year grant program, which would begin next year and last until 2015, would cover economic and social sectors such as sustainable trade, water infrastructure development, reforestation and higher education, capacity building, especially in the legal field.

Knapen said the Netherlands had not decided yet how much money would be involved should grants be involved in the cooperation.

“However, if you look at past experiences of the bilateral relationship between Indonesia and the Netherlands, some 53 million euros [US$77 million] is involved on a yearly basis,” Knapen said.

Knapen said that previous cooperation agreements with Indonesia had been done mostly through multilateral organizations, such as the World Bank and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

“We are planning to gradually change that into a direct cooperation, country-to-country,” Knapen told reporters at a press conference at the National Development Planning Board (Bappenas) office in Menteng, Central Jakarta.

According to Knapen, in the coming years, the Netherlands intends to intensify its cooperation with Indonesia in the areas where the Indonesian people really need it and at the same time the Netherlands can provide them.

“For us, it’s very important that we invest in a way that creates pockets of economic growth,” he said.

According to Knapen, one of the priorities in the cooperation will be in the field of water infrastructure development. “We see a demand for water infrastructure in Indonesia,” he said.

“We have a long history of trying to keep our feet dry as half of our country is below sea level. We feel familiar with this issue and maybe we can bring something to the table,” he added.

Bappenas head and National Development Planning Minister Armida Alisjahbana, also speaking at the press conference, said that Knapen was referring to a plan by the Indonesian government and the Jakarta administration to develop a dike system, similar to that in the Netherlands, in the Jakarta Bay to prevent seawater from the Java Sea from flooding North Jakarta.

“One goal of the cooperation would be for a dike system on Jakarta’s coastline,” Armida said, adding that she believed the Netherlands would be a perfect partner in developing a dike system in Jakarta as the country already had its own dike system, which had been proven to be very effective at preventing flooding.

Armida said that several ongoing cooperation programs with the Netherlands that had been in place for years would also be continued, including in the provision of the Nuffic Neso higher education scholarship programs, as well as in the fields of law and good governance.

“The bilateral cooperation in law was based on the fact that Indonesia has so many laws that were inherited from the Dutch colonial era,” Armida said.

“We have some common heritage when it comes to law, rules, and regulations,” Knapen said. “I believe we can help each other in making progress on this issue.” (mim)