Dear all, Following is the idea behind and implication of South-South Cooperation (SSC) between the Southern Province, Sri Lanka and Gorontalo Province, Indonesia which is just launched. As the outcome of discussion betwen two governors during 2nd international convention in Morocco, Gorontalo Province and the Southern Province SL under the initiative of South-South Cooperation affirmed their willingness to engage in future cooperation in the sectors of agriculture, education and health as well as local economic development. This taking place within the UNDP-Art Gold Program. We just recieved a reciprocal visit of Sri Lankan delegation undertook 14-18 Dec. What is UNDP Art Gold and why SL? This question might be disturbing our mind now. Art Gold is an international cooperation initiative designed by a group of UN Agencies (UNDP, UNESCO and others) to promote and create platform for local actors where they could work towards regional development by achieving win-win situationthe, mainly in achieving MDGs. The dynamic development within Gorontalo province which is, among other, taking place under continously developing interegional and interagencies networking has led province to the 1st pilot province of Art Gold Program in Indonesia. Why SL? UNDP reports show SL is doing very well, mainly in health and education sectors which also reflected in the final HDI rank of 99 as opposed to 107 of Indonesia. Yes, these are just numbers but they do tell a story, especially for a country experiencing a long lasting conflict in the North and East. SL, for instance, is good at percentage of physicians GDP on health and births attended by skilled health personal. While Indonesia is just allocating 20% of development budget for education, SL has been enjoying more than 30% national budget for free education. Scaled down to provincial level, the two Provinces are also pursuing national goals at sub national level. Gorontalo Province for instance, attempts to shift the old style government to the new one including reform in public administration, which for Gorontalo is of as its great priority. By adapting the concept of NPM, the Province Government has been in identifying and pursuing innovative advancements and consistently searching the best practices in target areas of capacity building. Implementing entrepreneurial government, Provincial Government of Gorontalo has shifted its focus and concentrating on just three aspects of development including HRD, Agriculture and Marine and Fisheries. Since its establishment, Gorontalo Province, for example, is still doing a number improvement programs dealing with sectoral development mainly in agriculture. Unsurprisingly, during the last three years, performance of province economic growth has been the second within Sulawesi Island . Nationally, we even ranked as the 2nd and the 8th best province in terms of productivity and production respectively. Surely, we still also have so many homeworks eg. poverty, unemployment, environmental issues, ethical sharing in agriculture, etc..etc...... So, what is implications of and lesson learnts coming from the SSC initiative? We may study strategies which lead Sri Lanka to achieve 90% its MDG targets already five years before the deadline, particularly in health sector including strengthening preventative and curative care system, health service network, etc. In education we can adapt policy and strategy in fomulating incentives include scholarships, mid-day meals, free textbooks; modernizing the primary school curriculum; upgrading teacher training courses, formulating National Action Plan for Children; etc.. For lesson learnts, needless to say, that in pursuing better performance in human development, Sri Lanka neglecting infrastructures. Our visit to SL indicated this. Old buildings, roads, etc found every where in the country. However, inside the old offices, officials working seriously and no air polution exhausted from those old buses. No long queue shown at the health centers and hospital. A condition whcih is mostly found in our experience. Referred to our workshops, said that Gorontalo province is better in promoting innovative works. For instance, they admired our developed agricultural managerial set up which is rarely found in SL. To sum up, if we put aside hedonism and promote functional works rather than ceremonial ones I believe we will be very much better in develoment compared to neighboring regions (locally) or even countries (nationally). At local level, innovative works in regional development are very much nedeed, of course without compromising national framework. I think this could be a change which is not only we can believe (as Obama said) but also a change we can do. Thanks, Aryanto Hs.
