The Ministry of National Development Planning (Bappenas) hosted the fourth ARISE+ Indonesia Project Steering Committee (PSC) meeting, held virtually on 17 December 2021. The Deputy Minister for Economic Affairs, Ms Amalia Adininggar Widyasanti and the Head of Cooperation of the European Union Delegation to Indonesia and Brunei Darussalam, Mr Thibaut Portevin co-chaired the meeting.
The Director of Trade, Investment and International Cooperation of Bappenas, who is also the Programme Director as well as Technical Advisory Board (TAB) Coordinator for the first component of the project, Ms P.N. Laksmi Kusumawati was the moderator of the meeting. The other five Technical Advisory Boards (TAB) Coordinators, who are also members of the PSC, were all represented in the meeting. The EU Delegation was also represented by Ms Nur Isravivani, the Task Manager in charge of the ARISE+ Indonesia. More than 40 persons including beneficiary agencies and members of the ARISE+ Indonesia Technical Assistance Teams were also in attendance.
Ms Widyasanti, on behalf of the Government of Indonesia, extended her appreciation to the European Union for the commitment to support Indonesian trade through the ARISE+ Indonesia Trade Support Facility (TSF). She highlighted the strong partnership between Indonesia and the EU in trade and other valuable initiatives, including the currently negotiated Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA).
"From Indonesia's perspective, the Indonesia-EU CEPA is a showcase of Indonesia's commitment to realise an open and fair trade," Ms Widyasanti said during her opening remarks.
She also noted that participation of the relevant line ministries in the meeting demonstrated the eagerness of the Government of Indonesia to realise concrete results out of the partnership with the European Union, in particular, to improve Indonesia's national export competitiveness and participation in the global value chain.
Ms Widyasanti commended the first Technical Assistance Team under the leadership of Mr Marc Kwai Pun for the notable efforts in implementing the project despite the COVID-19 pandemic constraints. She also announced the commencement of the second phase of the ARISE+ Indonesia in August 2021 to utilise the additional Euro 5 million grant that would extend the implementation period of the ARISE+ Indonesia until 2024. She welcomed Mr Alessandro Martinatto as the Team Leader of the second Technical Assistance Team to provide complementary and advanced technical support to contribute to achieving the ARISE+ Indonesia programme's objectives to enhance Indonesia's capacity to boost its trade performance and competitiveness.
Mr Portevin expressed his appreciation to the Government of Indonesia, represented by ministries and agencies, for their participation and active involvement in the programme despite the COVID-19 challenges. Agreeing with Ms Widyasanti, Mr Portevin emphasised the importance of trade relations between the EU and Indonesia.
"The ARISE+ Indonesia is the main cooperation instrument to support our trade," Mr Portevin said.
The PSC reviewed the implementation progress of the project during the current year and considered the project’s fourth Annual Work Plan (AWP), which will be substantially augmented with the additional resources from the second Technical Assistance Team in 2022. In 2021, the project held most of its activities online, including 91 training, workshops, webinars, and studies, participated by 5900 central and local government officials, the private sector, and civil society. The project also conducted four field missions delivering training to about 700 farmers/operators.
Activities for which experts or beneficiaries needed to cross borders could however not be conducted and would have to be carried over to 2022.
The exchanges that ensued the presentations of the AWPs by the two Team Leaders testified the strong ownership of the beneficiaries to optimise results and brought clarification on the implementation modalities of a few activities.
Closing the meeting, the ARISE+ Indonesia Program Director, Ms Kusumawati, acknowledged the endorsement of the fourth AWP by the relevant TAB coordinators and called upon them as well as the technical assistance teams, ministries and other relevant stakeholders to continue build coordination, collaboration and synergy for the successful implementation of the project.
"We hope that the implementation of this programme will benefit both Indonesia and the EU and strengthen our cooperation," Ms Kusumawati concluded the meeting.
