T

he 11th annual Bali Democracy Forum (BDF) wrapped up on Friday with stakeholders having offered solutions to how democracy could ensure the people benefit from the economic growth of countries.

With this year’s forum taking the theme “Democracy for Prosperity”, Deputy Foreign Minister AM Fachir said in the closing ceremony that countries faced challenges in implementing democracy that provides prosperity for all.

One of the solutions, he said, could be an inclusive democracy.

“Inclusive democracy is democracy that unites not divides, provides hope not fear, and empowers not weakens. To achieve an inclusive democracy, the participation of all stakeholders is vital, in particular those of the private sector, youth and women,” he said.

Nevertheless, he said democracy was a work in progress, and the values of democracy should not be reduced to traditional measurements of prosperity.

“Prosperity should not only be measured by monetary values, but can also be reflected by the well-being of its people,” he said.

The event was convened in parallel with two other fora, the Bali Democracy Student Conference (BDSC) and the Bali Civil Society and Media Forum (BCSMF), which made a set of recommendations to participants.

The civil societies recommended, among other things, to facilitate the broadening of understanding on how democracy works to deliver prosperity. It was also recommended that countries promote a collaboration structure that supports the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), aligning with the evolving concept of a prosperous and inclusive Indo-Pacific.

“This structure ought to be inclusive and participatory in nature, involving governments, academics, civil society and media, and the private sector, as mandated by the no-one-left-behind principle of the SDGs,” the recommendation reads.

Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi said on Thursday that Indonesia embraced democracy in 1998. Despite the high economic growth during the New Order era, Indonesians wanted democracy, transparency and good governance.

She said the Indonesian people learned that high economic growth did not always mean equality and prosperity for all.

Despite studies proving the link between democracy and economic growth, China had become one of the most discussed cases as the country had achieved high economic growth without necessarily having a democratic system.

The country centralized power in one authority through the Chinese Communist Party.

Donald K. Emmerson, director of the Southeast Asia Program at Stanford University, said the economic success of China had many explanations, including its historical background, especially Deng Xiaoping’s economic reform.

The most critical view, he said, was that the China model existed for a particular period of time under a certain set of historical conditions for a particular set of unique reasons.

He said Chinese academic papers more or less described that the country’s success was through socialism with “Chinese characteristics”, which “immediately limits the appeal of the model to non-Chinese countries”.

In contrast, he said, the Americans had the view that democracy was universally preferable.

Meanwhile, the third-largest democracy in the world, Indonesia, was more tolerant of a wider range of governments, he added.

Initiated in 2008 by then-president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the BDF provides a forum for the governments of various countries to share how they practice democracy in their political systems, without necessarily making it a “finger-pointing game”.

“The Americans promoted democracy, but Indonesia thought to themselves not to promote democracy but to project democracy,” Emmerson said.