President SBY Shows off Indonesias Success in MDGs
In the series of his visit to New York, the USA, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) attended the General Debate of the 69th Session of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, in the UN Headquarters in New York, the USA, on Wednesday afternoon (24/9) local time or Thursday early morning (25/9) west Indonesia time.
In the session opened by the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and also attended by Brazilian President Dilma Roussef and the US President Barrack Obama, President SBY began his speech by expressing his evaluation of the worlds efforts in the last 15 years to implement the ambitious grand projects namely the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
President SBY said that the hard work over many years has yielded many achievements which include breakthroughs in combating poverty, increasing school enrollment, and improving public health. However, those successes are uneven. They differ between regions, they differ within regions, and they even differ within countries.
One best lesson we must learn is that the most important driver of change lies in GOVERNANCE – not only good governance but also SMART governance, President SBY mentioned and then added that the smart governance usually involves innovative leadership and active public participation.
President SBY mentioned that with the smart governance, Indonesia has succeeded in increasing its national per capita income by 400 percent in only one short decade.
I believe that we can attain the MDGs much better if we can increase more comprehensive cooperation. We have the devices, the instruments, the resources, the experiences, and the infrastructures, to make good use of the international cooperation. What we need is strong political will, President SBY asserted.
To embark on the new global development agenda, President SBY urged everyone to learn the good lessons from our previous experiences and to become more acutely aware of the promise and pitfalls of development of what we want and what we do not want.
We do not want development that measures progress in terms of material provisions alone, and end up dehumanizing and marginalizing our citizens, President SBY stated.
Indonesias Achievements
On that occasion, President SBY stated a number of Indonesias significant achievements in the last decade, although he also mentioned that there are still so many challenges that Indonesia must overcome.
In a world grappling with climate change, we are progressively and boldly applying a moratorium on deforestation our important contribution of reducing carbon emission, President SBY explained and added that in a world of economic uncertainty, Indonesia has increased its national per capita income by 400 percent in only one short decade.
President SBY also mentioned that in a world witnessing rising extremism, Indonesia continues to hold firm to the values of freedom, tolerance, moderation, and multiculturalism that form the basis of our nationhood.
In a world still burdened by insurgencies, we have managed to find a permanent peaceful political solution to end the 30-year conflict in the Aceh province, President SBY explained.
In a world marked by turbulent transitions in the Middle-East, according to President SBY, Indonesia has shown time and again that in Indonesia, democracy, Islam, modernity, and human rights can go together.
In a world often stigmatized by the past, Indonesia has opened a whole new chapter of peaceful relations with East Timor, based on equality and mutual respect, President SBY continued and added that in a world where territorial disputes often erupt into open conflicts, Indonesia has continued to peacefully resolve, one by one, overlapping maritime borders with Vietnam, with the Philippines, with Singapore, and others.
Indonesias experience and Southeast Asias experience, President SBY continued, underscore the dawn of a new age of globalism for the 21st century: a world which openly embraces change as opposed to being intimidated by it.
According to President SBY, what the world needs today is the pioneering spirit: the boldness to break old boundaries and create new frontiers. Given this spirit, I believe humankind can overcome the challenges of climate change, conquer poverty and eradicate social injustice, hasten the global economic recovery, and create a culture of peace among all faiths, President SBY stated, welcomed with long applause by the participants of the UN session. (GMD/ES)
