Indonesian delegation hails Istanbul declaration

Indonesian delegation hails Istanbul declaration

By T. Sima Gunawan

ISTANBUL, Turkey (JP): Indonesia welcomed over the weekend the
Istanbul Declaration and the Habitat Agenda for the improvement
of human living conditions.

"There are many things we can learn from them," Soemadi
Brodjodiningrat, a member of Indonesian delegation, told
reporters Saturday.

Good governance is one of the issues Indonesia needs to
seriously address, he said.

The Declaration said that in the implementation of the Agenda,
the governments must promote, within the legal framework of each
country, decentralization through democratic local authorities,
and ensure transparency, accountability and responsiveness to the
needs of people.

Brodjodiningrat, Director General of Foreign Economic
Relations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that Indonesia
agreed to the principles of a good governance as discussed in the
conference.

"What we object to is any attempt to interpret good governance
as a particular system of government, like the American
democracy," he said.

The conference, which started on June 3, was attended by
10,700 participants from 171 countries and almost 20 heads of
states or governments. According to the participation list,
Indonesia had the second largest delegation with 82 people, after
Turkey.

Indonesia adopted without any reservation the Istanbul
Declaration and the Habitat Agenda at the end of the second UN
Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat) last weekend.

The Habitat Agenda is a Global Plan of Action which will serve
as a guideline in the drafting of policies for sustainable human
settlements.

Indonesia has long put human settlements on top of its
national policy, Brodjodiningrat said. He referred to the
sandang, pangan, papan (clothes, food and housing) as the three
basic needs on the country's priority list of economic
development.

For the first time at a UN conference, Habitat II allowed
local authorities, NGOs, parliamentarians, academicians and
researchers to take part. Even though the Conference did not
adopt their recommendations, they agreed to take them as an annex
to the Habitat Agenda.

Brodjodiningrat said that the annex could be a helpful
reference for the governments in the drafting of their policies,
even though it is not binding.

"It's good that the conference gave room to them to raise
their ideas and involve them formally and structurally as a
partner," he said.

Editorial -- Page 4