EU and RI furge a partnership in development

The European Union (EU) is Indonesia's second-largest donor. Funds totaling Rp 8.6 trillion in official development assistance to Indonesia have been provided by the European Commission (EC) and by EU member states during the period 1976 to 1996. The EC's own commitment for this period was Rp 815 billion, of which 90 percent has been for development assistance.

Since it was initiated in 1976, cooperation between the Indonesian government and the EC has focused on Indonesia's own development priorities, covering sectors such as rural development, science and technology, energy and the environment, to name the prominent areas of the partnership.

During the 1980s and early 1990s, the EC's development cooperation program emphasized support for the Indonesian government's efforts to maintain self-sufficiency in rice while also supporting the consolidation of a more diversified agricultural base. EC-funded programs, therefore, have focused on irrigation and drainage, palawija seed production and marketing, animal husbandry, fisheries and rural credit.

Through a budget line for non-government organization (NGO) projects, the EC has supported 51 NGO projects since 1992 totaling ECU 3 million. The main activities funded were in the fields of health, income generation activities and education and development, each accounting for some 20 percent of the total. The geographical coverage of the projects has been nationwide, with areas like Maluku and East Kalimantan absorbing 50 percent of all funds.

Cooperation in forestry

Indonesia's forests represent 10 percent of the world's remaining tropical forests. Based on the country's latest statistics, the present forest land area is 140.4 million hectares, of which 113.8 million hectares are classified as permanent forests and the remaining 26.6 million hectares as convertible forests.

While 113.8 million hectares seems vast, not all of it is covered with trees, and the condition of many forest areas is poor. During the sixth five-year development plan (REPELITA VI), 1992/1993 to 1997/1998, it was expected that three million hectares of forests would disappear due to conversion to nonforest purposes, for example, agriculture, resettlement, transmigration, plantation projects, roads, dams, etc.

Additional forest losses are caused by shifting cultivation, forest fires, commercial forest harvesting and illegal logging. Furthermore, there are more and more land-use conflicts involving local populations which are dependent on the utilization of their traditional forest resources. Because of this, the government and the EC decided to focus the development cooperation program more on sustainable forest management and forest conservation. As a result, two-thirds of the EC contribution to the program is now in these two fields.

In the field of conservation and protection, the main focus is on the Leuser Development Program, which aims to conserve the Leuser Ecosystem, including the Gunung Leuser National Park, and to promote sustainable development of the surrounding areas. In this program, the EC is supporting economic activities in the buffer zone of the national park, the development of appropriate ecotourism, the establishment of park boundaries and, last but not least, to build a program of support and awareness with local partners, including the communities in and around the park.

Another important program which is supported by the EC is the Forest Fire Prevention and Control Project. This project is involved in developing a model for a fire management system appropriate for South Sumatra. During the height of the forest fires in 1997, this project supported the government in its efforts in controlling the fires by donating ECU 326,000, which was used for the procurement of fire-fighting equipment and expertise as well as for a study using remote sensing to monitor the growth of the fires and their impact.

The fire project works in cooperation with another EC- supported project, the Forest Inventory and Monitoring Project, which aims at strengthening the Ministry of Forestry's capacity for forest planning and monitoring, thereby supporting both sustainable forest management and conservation. One of the outputs of this project will be a comprehensive and "user- friendly" Integrated Forest Resource Information System.