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^ CDI
Director Stephen Sherlock with Dr Sandy Widjaja, Director, Democratic Governance Cluster at the Partnership for Governance Reform in Indonesia, usually known by its Indonesian name of Kemitraan |
CDI is making vigorous efforts to expand the range and depth of our engagement with local and international organisations in Indonesia. The objective is to develop networks amongst the organisations involved in the strengthening of democratic institutions and processes in Indonesia and to catalyse cooperative activities amongst the extensive but sometimes unconnected resources of political expertise in the country.
To this end, the Director of CDI, Dr Stephen Sherlock, visited Indonesia in November 2011 to hold discussions with leading figures in a number of organisations. He met with Dr Rizal Sukma, the Director of Indonesia’s leading political think-tank, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), to discuss a proposal to create a discussion network amongst leaders of Indonesian political parties to develop ideas on how parties can reform and strengthen themselves as the country moves into its second decade of democracy. He met with Dr Sandy Widjaja of the Partnership for Governance Reform to discuss his organisation’s research agenda on political parties and to explore the options for the Partnership’s involvement in the discussion forum. Given the long experience of international political party foundations in the field, Dr Sherlock also met with the Director the National Democratic Institute (NDI), Mr Paul Rowland, and Dr Rainer Erkens, the Director of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FNF) to discuss their recent programs as well as their potential roles in a party discussion forum.
Dr Sherlock’s visit included consultations regarding CDI’s cooperative activities with the Institute for Peace and Democracy (IPD). This includes upcoming research workshops on political parties and electoral systems and on the problems of “money politics” in Indonesia, as well as training programs for parliamentary staff to be jointly run by CDI and IPD. CDI is also developing close working relations with the Representation Program (ProRep), funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is leading a program of capacity-building activities in the Indonesian parliament. Dr Sherlock conferred with ProRep Parliamentary Specialist, Mr Alvin Lie, a former Member of the Indonesian parliament and long-standing partner in CDI activities.
