Significantly, WASH is at the core of President George Weah’s national development program as set out in the Pro-Poor Agenda for Prosperity and Development (PAPD). Since its founding in 2018, the National WASH Commission has been distinguished by strong domestic political support, world class governance and solid international donor commitments, including major funding to WASH projects from USAID, the World Bank and UNICEF. Accordingly, WASH has directly improved the lives of millions of ordinary Liberians by increasing access to basic water, sanitation and hygiene services.

Of course, George Manneh Oppong Weah is also known by tens of millions of soccer loving Indonesians as the greatest African player of all time. In 1995, he was named FIFA player of the year while also being awarded the coveted Ballon d’Or, world soccer’s greatest individual honor.

Every day, all over the Indonesian archipelago from Aceh to Merauke, village children play barefoot soccer just like a young George Weah did growing up in the underprivileged “struggle community” of Clara Town in Liberia’s national capital Monrovia. (In his 18-year professional career, Weah played as a striker for Monaco, Paris Saint-Germain (PSG), Associazione Calcio (AC) Milan, Chelsea, Manchester City and Marseilles).

Formal diplomatic relations between Indonesia and Liberia began in 1965. In fact, Liberia is considered one of Indonesia’s oldest relationships on the African continent. This is because Liberia was one of three Sub-Saharan African nations that attended the landmark 1955 Asia-Africa Conference in Bandung, West Java.

Liberia’s strong support for what has become known as the Bandung Conference has positively framed relations between the two countries ever since. Significantly, it was not only conceived by Indonesia’s founding president, Sukarno, and coordinated by the respected Indonesian diplomat Ruslan Abdulgani (later Indonesian foreign minister), but energized by the social, cultural and economic advances made by Africa’s oldest independent republic: Liberia (The Republic of Liberia was established in 1847.) 

Air Vice-Marshal (ret) and Indonesian ambassador to the Economic Community of West African States, Usra Hendra Harahap, also known as Ucok, acknowledges this legacy.

“In the spirit of Dasa Sila Bandung, or the 10 principles of international cooperation, Indonesia is committed to improving bilateral relations with Liberia within the framework of the Economic Community of West African States Preferential Trade Agreement (ECOWAS)”.

Usra clearly recognizes Indonesia’s privileged access to this enormous combined market of over 350 million people, which represents some very significant trade and investment opportunities. (The 15 members of ECOWAS include Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo and of course, Liberia.)

According to Usra, the Indonesian government looks forward to expanding trade and investment cooperation with Liberia. For example, the power sector is a priority area because President Weah is committed to increasing domestic electrification as part of his Vision 2030 goals.

Usra further commented that, “One of Indonesia’s practical efforts to strengthen good relations with the Liberian people was to send peacekeepers there between 2003 and 2014. Since that time, our two countries have worked closely together as friends in numerous international forums. One example is that Liberia supported Indonesia’s membership of the UN Human Rights Council for the 2011-2014 and 2020-2022 periods.”

Whitfield’s experience of Indonesia first began when his family fled the first Liberian Civil War in 1990 and were resettled as refugees in Australia. As a young adult, Whitfield rose through the ranks of Australia’s community development sector to become multicultural ambassador for the State of Queensland.

This honor recognized his outstanding and sustained commitment to promoting the values of multiculturalism and harmonious community relations. It was at this time that he made friends with many Indonesians who were working alongside him on the Australia-Indonesia intergovernmental collaboration on immigration training.

Together, they discovered that they held many shared values, not least musyawarah mufakat (consensus building through dialogue and consultation), but also Dasa Sila Bandung. For Whitfield, this especially included “the promotion of mutual interests”.

In 2017, Whitfield returned to Liberia to share his experience, influence and networks and to make his own extraordinary contribution to Liberia’s post-conflict reconstruction.

Significantly, the principle of shared mutual interests has not only laid the foundation for all modern diplomacy but also inspired President Weah to establish the WASH Commission. In turn, this principle has guided Whitfield in implementing what is called community-led total sanitation (CLTS), which has much in common with the Indonesian value of gotong royong (community mutual assistance and cooperative obligation based on consensus).

Gotong royong is a nation-building philosophy that, like the 1955 Bandung Conference, was also inspired by president Sukarno and, in contrast, is an important reminder of how unhelpful, if not destructive, a purely western-centric “winner takes all” view of the world can be.

And, in what will be very welcome news for Whitfield, and all Liberians, Usra has confirmed that, “Indonesia will support and actively promote any initiatives from His Excellency President Weah in providing clean water, good sanitation and proper hygiene for our brothers and sisters in Liberia. Our Embassy is ready to facilitate these discussions.”

Clearly the spirit of Dasa Sila Bandung, like gotong royong, are values that Usra equally applies to the art of diplomacy. And this is both appreciated and understood in Liberia.

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The writer is a researcher with the Humanitarian and Development Research Initiative (HADRI) Western Sydney University.