The United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees will cohost a donor conference on Thursday to promote support for Rohingya refugees and host countries amid significant funding gaps made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hundreds of thousands ethnic Rohingya – mostly Muslims – have fled Myanmar for neighboring Bangladesh to avoid persecution following a massive military crackdown in 2017, which UN investigators described as bearing “genocidal intent”. Similar pledging conferences have been held annually since then.

As critics point to the slow response to the crisis, Indonesia continues to seek an alternative to the ineffective isolating of fellow ASEAN member Myanmar, which denies the allegations.

“What Indonesia tries to avoid the most is that a conference is put together that isn’t inclusive, meaning that if we want to talk about the Rohingya, we [have to] talk about their country of origin [first], and then the people [in other places or] in transit,” Febrian Ruddyard, the Foreign Ministry’s director general for multilateral cooperation, said recently.

“Whenever I think about the aid – whatever it may be – it becomes something of concern for us when it is not inclusive.”

Indonesian diplomats have continuously sought to find a balance between engaging Myanmar critically and employing constructive solutions, to the behest of many international critics.

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