When President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo traveled to Rome in late October, it was only five months after the Delta variant wrought havoc in the country where daily infection topped 50,000.

Despite the gloom, there was a prevailing sense of optimism that it was possible to find common ground and ways for every country to dig themselves out of the hole left by the COVID-19 pandemic. Hence the "Recover Together, Recover Stronger" theme. 

And with the COVID-19 situation starting to improve, especially concerning vaccination and travel restrictions, economic recovery and how to prepare for a future pandemic looked set to be the only two main agendas for G20 countries. 

The urgent task was how to coordinate economic and fiscal policies to allow for a quick global economic recovery and the setting up of a pandemic-preparedness fund. 

And then the war in Ukraine broke out.

With the disruption to the supply of energy and food brought on by the war, without a doubt, the global economic recovery is now an even more-difficult proposition. 

For Indonesia, the war in Ukraine made the idea of togetherness within the G20 context even more difficult. 

Soon after tanks rolled in and bombs went off in some Ukrainian cities, G7 countries began talks of kicking Russia out of the G20. 

Then Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said in March this year that allowing Russian President Vladimir Putin to sit with other world leaders at the G20 summit would be going “a step too far”.

Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said back in July that Russian presence at the G20 meeting was absurd. “It was like inviting an arsonist to a meeting of firefighters,” Freeland said.

Rishi Sunak, the current United Kingdom prime minister, made a call in August this year to the G20 to bar Putin from its meetings until Moscow halts the war in Ukraine. 

The tension over the Ukraine War has also roiled meetings of G20 ministers, some of which ended up with no final communique nor family photos, which in normal times is nothing but a ceremonial gesture.

So high was the tension and so bad was the situation that senior government ministers did not want to be caught in the same room with Russian officials or be photographed in the same event. 

It is in that context that we should applaud the role of Indonesia in keeping the G20 intact until the finish line this week when leaders gather at the Apurva Kempinski Hotel, in Nusa Dua, Bali.

The fact that seventeen G20 leaders, including United States President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, are now landing in Nusa Dua, is a testament to Indonesia’s success in its diplomatic effort to bring everyone together and talk about pressing global problems in Bali.

Indonesia has long prided itself on being a neutral country and that stance has paid off handsomely right at the moment where the world is in deep crisis.