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Conference on ADB Policies and Strategies
November 2000, Jakarta, Indonesia

Background

For the Indonesian organizers, the Conference was a ‘historical point’ for the people’s movement critical to the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The last ten years had largely been spent in initiating a critical dialogue between the Bank and NGOs. At the national level, some campaigns are deemed to be successful, e,g,, the cancellation of the Lore Lindu Dam in Central Sulawesi and Industrial Forest Plantation project in West Kalimantan.

These campaigns, however, have not reached the stage to trigger the formation of a movement to criticize ADB. One cause is due to the fact that to be an activist who understands MDB issues was not deemed important by most activists in Indonesia. Continually tracing ADB documents in English and which are hard to obtain was a boring task for many NGO activists. It was also frustrating to deal with both ADB and Indonesian government officials; this requires certain skills apart from those common among most Indonesian activists.

The Anti-Debt Coalition, which was formed at the Annual Meeting of the Consultative Group on Indonesia (CGI) in Jakarta in February 2000, opened the eyes of many on the extent of Indonesian debt problems that increased significantly without scrutiny from civil society. The creation of the Asian Labor Network on IFIs (ALNI) in July also triggered the creation of a people’s movement aimed at criticizing the role of international financial institutions in Indonesia’s debt problem.

Amidst. these developments, the four-day Conference on ADB policies and Strategies – with focus on privatization -- was organized. Participants comprised of the wide range of Indonesian civil society (e.g., NGOs, trade unions, farmers organizations, entrepreneurs, academe, mass media), government and ADB and World Bank.

NGO Demands

Privatization is a big and controversial issue in Indonesia; the government has plans to privatize 144 state companies. Opposition started to emerge as privatization is almost always linked to massive job displacements. At the end of the conference, participants – numbering 97 on the first-day seminar and 27 in the 3-day workshop – called strongly for the rejection of ADB’s Poverty Reduction Strategy for Indonesia and of privatization of state-owned companies.

Demands for greater transparency, accountability and participation were also called for:

Reject new foreign debts for poverty alleviation schemes if their character is still top-down and they open opportunity for corruption, collusion and nepotism;

Review the subsidy policy which objective is to actually meet the basic needs of people (e.g. health and education), as well as subsidy for small farmers to ensure that their products are absorbed in the market at prices that benefit them;

Government must select foreign debts; decisions concerning new debts should involve the society; the Law on Foreign Debt must be issued immediately;

Lobby the creditors for a debt relief particularly for debts that are categorized as odious and criminal;

Demand that ADB and other creditors release data concerning controversial funded projects, as well as officials involved in the projects;

Reject the Poverty Alleviation Strategy initiated by ADB;

Reject the strategy of government to sell healthy state-owned companies with arguments that do not make any sense;

Reject the privatization of state-owned companies that are directly related with public services such as water, electricity, social security and telecommunications;

Review state-owned companies that were already privatized but suspected to have problems, such as the case of PLN (State Electric Company) and JICT PELINDO II.

Endorsed in Jakarta, 23 November 2000 by participants from:

DebtWATCH Indonesia (dWI)
Serikat Buruh Sejahtera Indonesia (SBSI)
Rimbawan Muda Indonesia (RMI)
International NGO Forum on Indonesian Development (INFID)
NGO Forum on ADB
ALNI-Indonesia
Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW)
Jaringan Kerja-Lemabaga Pelayanan Kristen (JK-LPK)
International Development and Economic Analysis (IDEA – Yogyakarta)
Yayasan Duta Awam – Solo
Serikat Pekerja PAM Jaya
DPP FSP-KEP
Labour Education Centre (LEC)
Yayasan Bimbingan
Kesejahteraan Social (YBKS-Surakarta)
Forum Komunikasi Serikat Pekerja JICT