Lessons
Lessons
What are the lessons to be learned from these brief surveys of Indonesia's experience and of experience in other countries in transition? Four seem to stand out.
First, throughout the last three decades, both ideas about economic policy as well as economic events in Indonesia have been significantly influenced by external economic influences.
In addition, for much of the period in the 30 years up to the crisis, in important respects the external environment was relatively favorable. But the external economic environment today is less favorable. The international development policy agenda has become complex and is focusing attention on challenges which are largely outside of Southeast Asia. In addition, there is intense global competition for financial resources. Indonesia will need to ensure that the domestic climate is as favorable as possible in order to encourage inflows of public and private sector capital.
Third, throughout the period, Indonesia placed much reliance on the major international institutions for the conduct of Indonesian economic diplomacy. Now that the priorities of the international community have changed it would be prudent for Indonesia to rely less on the multilateral system and to plan to strengthen the capacity of Indonesian institutions to conduct official economic diplomacy.
Finally, in an increasingly pluralistic policy environment, "second tier" civil institutions such as research agencies, think tanks, commercial groups, labor organizations, and so on, are expected to provide input into international and domestic policy debates (Weaver and Stares. 2001). Indonesia therefore needs to have a well-developed second tier capacity to interact with external economic actors such as bilateral donors and multilateral agencies, commercial and trade organizations, international think tanks, and private investors. Much of the highlevel interaction during the period of the New Order rested, on the Indonesian side, with the economic technocrats. Today, faced with a new set of international conditions, it is in Indonesia’s interests to widen the range of domestic economic institutions which can represent Indonesia's national interests effectively to the international community.
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