INDONESIAN-HOSTED PALESTINIAN CONFERENCE WRAPS UP

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 JAKARTA 001348 SENSITIVE SIPDIS DEPT FOR EAP, EAP/MTS, EAP/MLS, NEA, NEA/IPA NSC FOR E.PHU E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PREL EAID ID SF XF SUBJECT: INDONESIAN-HOSTED PALESTINIAN CONFERENCE WRAPS UP REF: JAKARTA 1238 ¶1. (U) This message is Sensitive but Unclassified -- Please handle accordingly. ¶2. (SBU) SUMMARY: Indonesia and South Africa co-sponsored a capacity building conference for the Palestinian Authority on July 14 in Jakarta. Officials representing over 60 countries from Asia and Africa met to pledge training and other capacity-building assistance in key areas such as agriculture, education, economic growth and health. The Ambassador and other representatives of the Quartet attended the opening ceremony. END SUMMARY. CONFERENCE IN JAKARTA ¶3. (SBU) Representatives from over 60 countries participated a conference on Palestinian capacity building held on July 14 in Jakarta. The formal title of the event was the "New Asian-African Strategic Partnership Ministerial Conference on Capacity Building for Palestine." It was co-sponsored by Indonesia and South Africa. Conference participants spent July 15 in Bandung, where they toured the museum commemorating the 1955 Asia-Africa Conference--an event of conspicuous importance in the Indonesian worldview--that helped spark the creation of the Non-Aligned Movement. ¶4. (SBU) The conference, organized by Indonesia and South Africa, aimed to complement the Quartet-led donor group that met in Paris last December and in Berlin in June of this year. Organizers stressed that the conference aimed to generate promises of exchange programs, training and other forms of capacity building assistance, not donations of financial support. ¶5. (SBU) Ambassador Hume and other envoys in Jakarta attended the opening session at the Presidential Palace although only countries from the Asia-Africa group participated in the conference's working sessions. (Note: Delegates from Brazil, Chile and Venezuela also participated.) Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Salam Fayyad led the Palestinian delegation, which included four other ministerial-level officials from the PA. CALL TO BOLSTER CAPABILITIES ¶6. (SBU) The conference emphasized the themes of strengthening the Palestinian economy and improving the lives of the Palestinian people. Speaking at the start of the conference, President Yudhoyono said the goal of the conference was to empower the Palestinians to build an independent state, as called for at the Annapolis Conference. Yudhoyono also stated: "Our collective conscience called upon 53 years ago to support the struggle of the Palestinian people. Today our conscience calls upon us again to broaden that support and make it more practical, substantial and durable. We are thus called upon to help the Palestinian people in a more concrete way." PM Fayyad called on conference participants to help build a "prosperous Palestine with an economy open to other markets around the world." PLEDGES OF SUPPORT ¶7. (SBU) Conference participants reviewed 90 proposals to assist the PA in key areas, especially agriculture, education, economic growth and health. Palestinian leaders strongly endorsed this approach. While acknowledging the importance of the Quartet-led donor process, PM Fayyad said support from Asian and African countries was critical because the experience of these countries was similar to that of the Palestinian people. JAKARTA 00001348 002 OF 002 ¶8. (SBU) Participating countries pledged to support many of the projects tabled. Indonesia promised to train 1000 PA civil servants at the Department of Foreign Affairs (DEPLU) training center, beginning with an initial tranche of ten Palestinian diplomats (Note: As of the close of the conference, DEPLU had not yet released a finalized list of the projects the group agreed to support. Mission will forward a copy of this to EAP/MTS when it becomes available.) HUME