The Indonesian Government is asked to encourage development in South-South cooperation, because Indonesia has initiated the South-South cooperation through the Asia-Africa Conference back in 1955 in Bandung. Nowadays, the issues they need to address are no longer about colonisation but global poverty and injustices.
This emerged in the Annual Convention on the Global South entitled Rethinking International Relations in the Era of Technological Disruption, running from 5-6 November at UGM Senate Hall. Organised by Faculty of Social and Political Sciences UGM, it presented speakers in international relations including Prof. Mohtar Mas’oed from UGM and Prof. Ashok Acharya from University of Delhi.
Ashok said the spirit from the Bandung Conference was still relevant until today. Solidarity, however, needs to be enhanced by raising common problems to be addressed. “We want to return the Bandung spirit as a form of transnational cooperation in campaigning for global injustice issues,” said Ashok.
He saw most of the countries in the South have the same problems, such as poverty and hunger, conflict, diseases, migration, human rights abuse, inequalities, resources exploitation, international trade, climate change, refugees, and global citizenship. These ought to be addressed by Asian and African leaders and cooperation ought to be established to resolve them.
Prof. Mohtar Mas’oed said developing countries were facing issues related to developments in technology and business evolution. Amidst Industrial Revolution, governments are expected to give better and more transparent services as well as improving the economy due to technological disruption. “Almost in all countries, the society wants adaptation from new technology services to be applied,” he said.
Command of technology, in his opinion, is part of the bargaining power of the developed countries. On the other hand, developing countries are still facing the problems of research and development that are still lacking. Unesco report in 2017 stated the research funding ratio to the GDP in Indonesia was low compared to those in other countries or just 0.24 while China 2.13, India 0.62, Korea 4.55, Malaysia 1.44, Singapore 2.22, and USA 2.80. He viewed that these would become a homework for the new Education and Culture Minister Nadiem Makarim to increase Indonesia’s competitive levels in the global stage.