Ambassador Sudjadnan Parnohadiningrat has had a distinguished career in the Indonesian Foreign Service. He has been with the Department of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia since 1981 and has served as Secretary General of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador to Australia and Vanuatu, and in posts in Geneva and New York.

What do you consider Indonesia’s primary foreign policy challenges?
We need to elevate our country’s stature globally. With a population of 234 million, we are the 3rd largest democracy in the world, but our movement from an authoritarian regime to a democratic one hasn’t been widely recognized. Because we also subscribe to the theory that, among democracies, there will be no war, we wish this to be widely understood, because the well-being of our population depends upon it. One way to raise our profile, we believe, is through economic growth and economic success.

What do you consider Indonesia’s primary foreign policy opportunities?
We have become a natural resource and commodity supplier to China (rubber, palm oil) and we see China’s growth as an opportunity for us.

In your opinion, what are Indonesia’s most pressing domestic issues?
Poverty alleviation is a critical problem for us to address. Creating jobs by developing infrastructure—roads, bridges, and port facilities—is one way we are doing that. We have budgeted $149 billion U.S. for this purpose and currently have $225 million in hand for projects in 2005-2009. For the remainder, we are seeking foreign investment.

Another challenge we face is uneven population distribution. Of our total population, 60% (140 million) live on Java. This island is the size of Alabama and only 1/14th of the country. We believe we can address this issue by devolution of power/decentralization. When provinces can manage their own resources to create more and better opportunities, population distribution is more likely to stabilize.

We face environmental challenges as well. Economic growth as a source of emission of gas has become problematic, especially in big cities, where it threatens the life and comfort of the population. Although we abide by the Kyoto Protocols, most power generation in Indonesia is by oil and this is a problem.

We are also working to strengthen the awareness among our people about the careless treatment of the environment/environmental degradation. National programs through the Ministry of the Environment have been formulated and advocate different policies. We have implemented a policy not to export logs—only finished products like furniture—but illegal logging is an issue and we are working to strengthen law enforcement and to cooperate with NGO’s and neighboring countries to reduce it.

A wide range of reforms have been introduced since President Suharto’s resignation, including Indonesia’s first direct presidential election in 2004. What do you think are most significant among them?

We have amended the constitution four times between 1998 and 2003; held free and fair elections twice from 1999-2004; devolved centralized government power to our 33 provinces; and have been able to reposition our military to be part of a democracy. Some 67% of newly elected officials have never held office and come from different parties—our people are very eager to participate in democracy. In addition, we have been able to allow a large amount of privatization of state-owned companies, particularly banks, leading to a reform of the banking system.