JAKARTA, Indonesia, Sep 22 — Seven decades after Asian and African leaders gathered in the Indonesian city of Bandung to challenge colonialism and imagine a new international order, Indonesia is seeking to give that legacy a more tangible economic meaning, with Kenya emerging as an important focus of its engagement in Africa.

📻 Breaking It Down

Indonesian officials say the country wants to move beyond the political symbolism of the 1955 Bandung Conference and build practical South-South partnerships in trade, investment, agriculture, energy, food security, tourism, education and technical cooperation.

The push comes as Indonesia seeks to deepen its engagement with Africa while Kenya looks to expand its economic relationships beyond its traditional partners.

“We haven’t really translated the Bandung Conference as our political and historical investment into a concrete economic cooperation,” Dewi Justicia Meidiwaty, Indonesia’s Director for Africa at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told a group of Kenyan journalists visiting Indonesia on a familiarisation programme.

📌 What You Need to Know

“That’s why, starting from 2018, we try to have on a regular basis the Indonesia-Africa Forum.”

The journalists were accompanied by officials from the Indonesian Embassy in Nairobi, led by Raden Wisnu Lombardwinanto, Minister Counsellor at the embassy.

Also taking part were senior officials from Indonesia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, including the Deputy Director for International Development Cooperation and the Deputy Director for Information and Media.

Meidiwaty said the Indonesia-Africa Forum was designed to provide a platform for Indonesia and African countries to develop a model of cooperation rooted in their shared position as countries of the Global South, rather than replicate relationships established by larger powers.

“We don’t want to copy it like the way they have with maybe China or Japan or the most established ones, but we will try to find our own mechanism that reflects the cooperation between South-South countries,” she said.

The Bandung Conference brought together 29 Asian and African countries in Indonesia in 1955, becoming an important milestone in the struggle against colonialism and the emergence of a more independent voice for countries of the Global South.

📰 Source: Capital FM Kenya