Riding the momentum in Indonesia
16 Mar 2010
Arnold van der Zanden, education expert at the Dutch Embassy in Jakarta, explains how NICHE will support the “broad-based relationship” between the Netherlands and Indonesia.
Indonesia is one of the countries eligible for NICHE support. The Dutch Embassy in Jakarta sees NICHE as a good instrument to support the implementation of its Multi-Annual Strategic Plan (MASP 2008-2011) in the framework of broadening the relationship with Indonesia.
As most readers will know, in 2007 the Dutch Government divided its partner countries for development cooperation into three groups with different policy profiles. Indonesia is part of the third group, broad-based relationship, and considered 'a country that has achieved (lower) middle-income country status and is on target for achieving most of the MDGs'.
MASP
Based on this profile, we developed our Multi-Annual Strategic Plan with the objective to strengthen and extend bilateral relations. Within this framework, we support programmes in the fields of good governance, investment climate, education, water management, water supply and sanitation, environment and sustainable energy.
The MASP was discussed with the Indonesian Government, through its Coordinating Ministry for National Planning (Bappenas), which coordinates all foreign funding to Indonesia. Bappenas also represents the Indonesian Government in our discussions on NICHE.
It’s all in the preparation
When Nuffic announced its first NICHE identification mission we did our homework and provided support and input to Nuffic, in the hope that the NICHE programme could make a head start in Indonesia.
After a broad internal discussion with all policy staff of the Embassy, including attachés from other Dutch Ministries, we prepared a short document for Nuffic identifying themes and possible partners that could benefit from NICHE and support the objectives of our MASP.
Obviously, we were unable to address all the areas we are working in so we looked carefully where NICHE would have the greatest added value. We also sent this document to Bappenas in preparation for our discussions with them and Nuffic.
Mutual briefings
When Nuffic visited Indonesia, late January 2010, we first had a meeting in which Nuffic briefed our Embassy staff about the NICHE programme. In turn, we briefed Nuffic about our ideas on strategically using NICHE to support the joint Dutch-Indonesian agenda as laid down in our MASP. This very helpful meeting set the stage for the rest of the mission.
Keen to get started
The next meeting was with Bappenas to discuss our ideas. They reacted positively and were very keen to get the programme on track as soon as possible. Over the next two weeks of the mission Nuffic had a series of meetings with officials of Indonesian ministries and other Embassy partners. Embassy staff accompanied Nuffic during these visits.
Since we thought it would be very important to have as much Embassy staff involved as possible, a total of 14 colleagues were involved in these meetings with our external partners. They were able to brief Nuffic about policies and ongoing cooperation in the various sectors and act as a broker between Nuffic and the partners.
Embedded approach
I think this formula worked very well. NICHE is now well embedded in the work of my Embassy colleagues. At the end of the mission Nuffic was already able to submit a draft Programme Outline. This outline is currently being discussed with Bappenas and we expect it to be signed before mid March.
Building on momentum
We hope we can keep the momentum going so that the first project outlines can be tendered by August/September at the latest. Although it is still early days, and not up to me, to go into the specifics of the individual projects, I am convinced that they will offer Dutch partners an interesting package and that NICHE Indonesia will play a key-role in Dutch-Indonesian cooperation in the coming years. In addition, NICHE can generate a lot of interesting spin-offs for Dutch knowledge institutes in the longer term.
About the author
Arnold van der Zanden is the focal point for NICHE Indonesia at the Embassy. He has been involved in international education programmes since the early 90s, first as policy officer/head of project management at Nuffic, later as policymaker at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
