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.