The Indonesia-Africa Forum (IAF) is one of Indonesia’s goodwill toward the long-continent partnership in terms of economic growth as the same of developing countries which held various types of industries to become their potential forefront economic activities. Looking the historic side of this “Regional Relations”, both African countries and the Indonesia had long friendship story since the 1955 with the Bandung Conference or well known as Asia-Africa Conference with the new spirit of the representative amongst the countries in Asia and Africa which consist of newly independent and developing countries 54 countries with 1.5 billion populations in total. This is gonna be something more improved as for the future this relationship is going more dynamic yet stable with Indonesia still having a big closeness with the African countries. Indonesia and Africa shared the same ideals of anti-colonialism at the beginning of their independent journey which became a further step with the Indonesia and African countries later forming a revolutionary pact as Non-Alignment Movement in 1961. This is the biggest maneuver for a developing country to choose not to enter the heat of the Cold War arena and plus this bloc didn’t become the obstacle for the country to also reap the “advantage” of the major power countries to improve their industry and economic capability. With this steadfastness, relations even after the Cold War era, both Indonesia and the African showing more mutual need for one thing, their economic power. The spirit of independence of these countries shows significant progress, especially the diversification of industry availability despite their overwhelming resource of minerals and oils alone as one of its national incomes.
In the contemporary era, it has become a more firm stance of both countries and the continent to improve their home as a new economic powerhouse not just with the national capabilities, but a much more improved movement, a visionary one, the establishment of Indonesia-Africa Forum (IAF). Since the first meeting in 2018 this economic forum of Indonesia and Africa gained much change for both of the countries. This forum alone gave some good head-start by the first agreement by Indonesian Construction firm PT Wijaya Karya’s (WIKA) in Nigeria and Algeria, also in the other sector Indonesia going for oil trade both in Angola and Nigeria. Looking before 2018, Indonesia and Africa itself share some beneficiary of export and import of commodities consisting of crude oil, cotton and various key commodities that have values of US$4.86 billion. Indonesia as the long time partner of the African continent has shared an investment toward Africa which is estimated at $2.17 trillion and a potential market of 1.22 billion people in 2016. In vice versa, several African countries also made some investments in Indonesia which valued at $743 million. This promising business partnership then resulted in more comprehensive and trustworthy for both the country and continent for the IAF partnership which Indonesia also including several private Sectors and state-owned business conjoined by the High-level Forum and Multi-Stakeholder Partnership (HLF & MSP).
The Driving Factors To Understanding The Cooperation
Therefore, Indonesia and African countries are included in developing countries which African countries themselves have potential to grow up their economic conditions. Within the bilateral cooperation, African countries supported Indonesia through investment in many sectors including in food security, renewable energy, healthcare, etc. Indonesia within its free and active foreign policy provides forums such as IAF to discuss and negotiate between countries. There are several agreements that have been signed between the countries and also the discussion of strengthening the strategic and comprehensive relationship.
First, the perspective of common people about the least developed countries list on the globe was fulfilled by the African countries. Meanwhile in 2024, a report from the UN Committee for Development Policy announced that several countries in Africa will graduate from the list of least developed countries. The reason is because these countries such as Djibouti, Senegal and other considerations for Rwanda, Uganda, and Comoros, had met the requirements which consist of three criteria; per capita gross national income; the human assets index; and the economic and environmental vulnerability index. Moreover, the list of developing countries according to the UN World Economic Situation and Prospect 2024, shows those African countries inside of its list. For those reasons, the argument comes up with the idea of the driven factors of Indonesia willing to invest in African countries supported by the fact that African countries have developed more through past years. Thus, Indonesia has a good intention as a good relationship partner with African countries to help each other by investing in several sectors to prosper the well-being of the citizens.
Second, Indonesia and Africa are active to join the regional cooperation in their own region. Which Indonesia has ASEAN and also African countries has African Union, by the existence of the regional cooperation the countries motivated to establish a new strategy and policy to pursue and promote common goal in one or more issues areas, which by regionalism process, a multidimensional form of integration to embracing economic, cultural, politics and others. Within the regionalism process, both countries are more capable of unity despite the diversity they have for achieving the goals that they are willing to achieve. Moreover, the regional cooperation gave both countries experience to arrange a good strategy for their future plan, since they are actively joining the regional summits and agenda within the organization. While Indonesia itself seeks to be a diplomatic player and secured as a global economic figure, the African try to increase their influence and power through the market stage.
Third, Indonesia and Africa countries have similar goals to pursue the future agenda which are 2045 for Indonesia Emas and 2063 for The Africa We Want. This agenda motivates the leaders of countries to put more effort into transforming the better future of those countries, by designing several strategies and planning which concentrate on sustainable development in many sectors such as economic, environmental, political and social culture. By the context of economic and social culture development, both sides wanted to reduce inequality and poverty amongst the countries, by becoming a more inclusive yet competitive economic environment to foster national economic growth through the region. The private companies are the main actors of this cooperation and the key to alleviate unemployment. This could be hoped from both parties as the effective solutions to improve social welfare, to increase job creations, and to boost the adequate education system. Both 2045 and 2063 prioritize political stabilization and law supremacy as they pursue economic stability at the nation’s level. The countries themselves tend to fight corruption and improve transparency in government as it is going to affect the nation’s development.
Conclusions
In conclusion, Indonesia and the African continent share the same historical background as they experienced colonialism and the same spirit for economic development after they gradually gained their independence. Their previous cooperation is quite focused on the stability of the economic development in the future, since the African Countries showed much yet stable progress after fulfilling the UN Development policy criteria. It shows a brighter future by the IAF itself to encourage and stimulate more progressive in export and import capability. In other commodities, especially the various companies and parties from both sides have already joined the agreements marked by the HLM & MSP. This also became one of their projects to implement the country’s far future agendas such as Indonesia Emas 2045 and African 2063 Agenda, which aim for social and economic transformation, also pursuing law supremacy. The regionalism by the African Union itself, become the main factor why IAF is quite favorable by many African countries as viable suprastructure to enter the global market.
*Muh. Tanzilal Azizi Dapulu is a student of International Relations at Sriwijaya University.
