RI public relations and economic diplomacy

RI public relations and economic diplomacy

By Irawan Abidin

JAKARTA (JP): For decades, Indonesian diplomats didn't have an
easy time; their country's kind of democracy was always
questioned, and its record on human rights was always being
doubted or subjected to direct attack.

Or else Indonesia would be defending the unique political role
of its military, or struggling to keep the issue of East Timor
off the agenda.

With earnest political reforms being instituted in Indonesia
today, its diplomats participating in various international
forums can breathe a little easier. But nobody is looking forward
to a soft life in the diplomatic service.

This is because the job of the Indonesian diplomat has become
so much more interesting and challenging, since the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs announced that it was placing a great deal more
emphasis on economic relations.

Indonesian diplomats, spread out in some 150 missions across
the world, are now expected to take concrete initiatives in
promoting market opportunities for the country's traders and
attracting foreign investors to Indonesia.

Diplomatic missions abroad are now being regularly provided
with economic data to promote their country. Under new
regulations, they have also been accorded the authority to
approve applications for foreign investments.

The policy is now the right thing to do. Had it been attempted
when Indonesia was soaking under criticism of its human rights
record this policy would not have had much chance of success.

The diplomats would have been called upon to act as the "sales
force" of a "bad product," an Indonesia that was the antithesis
to all that was democratic in the Western tradition.

But today that image has changed, thanks to the global
peregrinations of President Abdurrahman Wahid during which he has
cultivated among members of the international community a new
perception of Indonesia as a nation that is inexorably
democratizing and reforming itself.

This is a public relations coup by the government of President
Abdurrahman and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under minister
Alwi A. Shihab. It is certainly commendable, but it is not enough
to carry the day for Indonesian diplomacy.

The ministry should now take the next logical step in
supporting the use of diplomacy to promote Indonesian exports and
investment flows to Indonesia -- to design and carry out a
marketing communication program for the Indonesian economy.

Indonesia has already told a convincing story of how much it
needs and deserves economic support from and engagement with the
international community.

Now it must tell as a convincing a story about the
opportunities for economic engagement with Indonesia; about the
products and projects involved; the private corporations
concerned and what they are proposing.

A good beginning was the recent convening of a ministerial
meeting on investment in Indonesia, attended by 12 investor
countries, including neighbors from the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations, with which Indonesia shares a common vision of
development, and Gulf countries with which Indonesia has close
cultural and religious affinities.

But, still, there is need to follow this up with a sustained
marketing communication program that will cover over a 100
countries with which Indonesia can trade and whose entrepreneurs
can be persuaded to invest in the local business and industry.

Such a program will have to make effective and efficient use
of both the international and local mass media where diplomatic
missions operate, and also includes the Internet.

Direct purchase of space in the print media and airtime in the
broadcast media and the Internet is expensive so marketing
communications will have to be primarily a public relations
program.

This means that the chief tools of the marketing communication
campaign will be media relations and publicity. A standard plan
for marketing communications, in this case public relations, can
be prepared by the appropriate unit in the directorate of
information at the above ministry.

Indonesian missions abroad could then adjust the plan to fit
the information needs of local audiences and the requirements of
local media.

The directorate of information will have to be tasked with
gathering the data to be used by the missions to issue news and
photo releases, radio releases, feature articles and the like.

But does the ministry have the personnel with such skills? No
-- the ministry has been recruiting and training individuals to
become diplomats with the traditional skills in diplomacy, not
the specialized skills needed in marketing communications.

One solution would be to hire a multinational public relations
outfit, as some governments are doing these days.

Unfortunately, such governments have found that these outfits
are exorbitantly expensive and yet they do not deliver on their
extravagant promises. You simply cannot communicate what you do
not know very well.

A much easier and much less costly way is for the ministry to
recruit and train personnel to become public relations and
marketing communicators for the Indonesian economy.

Apart from possible potential young people among existing
diplomats, candidates could also be sought from among personnel
from the defunct ministry of information.

In any case, an intensive training program will have to be
conducted to train all diplomats in mass communication work.

Rather than an additional expense, this would be a major
investment in human resources development and an opportunity for
diplomats to realize their potentials.

One of the many extra benefits would be that the communication
skills could also be applied to promote Indonesia's side in any
political issue. If and when the Indonesian diplomat becomes a
good marketing communicator, he will also be a more persuasive
communicator in political matters.

The writer, a career diplomat, was Indonesia's ambassador to
The Holy See.