The Foreign Service Journal, January 2009

26 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 9 E mbassy Jakarta gained five positions under the Global Repositioning Program and appears to have maximized the benefits of a net increase in staffing. Officers in new positions have enabled the embassy to expand outreach activities and increase domestic travel, not only for those five individuals but for the mission as a whole. With inno- vative travel plans and programs already established and operating, Mission Indonesia represents a best-case sce- nario for the GRP. Certain factors that contribute to Indonesia’s success may inform evaluation of which countries might be best equipped to actually “do more with more” in the future. These factors are: • A fairly strong dollar has resulted in a healthier budget than at many other posts. • Supportive leadership from the front office makes transformational diplomacy and the GRP a top priority for the mission. • Domestic travel programs, supported across sections and even agencies, maximize travel by the most embassy personnel. • Finally, and perhaps most importantly, unlike some other recipient posts, Indonesia is truly an emerging democracy, and there is considerable scope for TD-type work because of the open climate. A Dramatic Comparison Ten years ago, when I served in Jakarta’s political sec- tion during the two years leading up to and through the fall of the Suharto regime, the Asian financial crisis hit, dis- satisfaction with the regime was growing and democracy activists were being kidnapped by the military. The U.S. government was haltingly moving away from a long-term close relationship with President Suharto and the Indone- sian military. Back then, the embassy was already engaged in what could be called transformational diplomacy — meeting regularly with opposition figures, student leaders, NGOs and labor unions. USAID and the U.S. Information Agency were supporting democracy programs. During a spring 2008 visit to Embassy Jakarta, I was able to meet with all of the GRP officers as well as the man- agement counselor, the deputy chief of mission, the polit- ical counselor, three other political officers and two USAID FSNs working on democracy programs. It was breathtak- ing to see that, after 10 years, not only has democracy taken hold in Indonesia, but Embassy Jakarta itself appears to have come together in new and innovative ways to sup- port its growth and institutionalization there. The embassy did not ask for many American Presence Post positions, practicing, as Deputy Chief of Mission John Heffern put it, “truth in advertising.” The mission knew that it would be impossible to set up full-time, one-person posts in a number of cities in a high-threat country like In- donesia. Instead, the embassy created a new program aiming to achieve similar results — the Liaison Officer Pro- gram, established in September 2007. The embassy formed teams from different sections — political, eco- nomic, consular and public diplomacy — to cover differ- ent regions of the vast archipelago. The officers involved are called “circuit riders.” They do not live in the cities they cover; their positions are Jakarta-based. They include both entry-level and more senior-level officers. They travel to their designated re- gions to conduct public outreach and educational pro- grams at universities, schools and business forums. They meet with local NGOs and other organizations and build contacts. What the GRP did was “add new officers to the gene pool,” Management Counselor Lawrence Mandel explains, allowing all sections to “bump up” transformational diplo- macy activities. The embassy spread the wealth around, taking advantage of the new positions to allow GRP and non-GRP officers to travel more often. Careful steward- ship of travel money, with an emphasis on domestic over international travel, combined with a reasonably strong ex- change rate, has helped the Liaison Officer Program suc- ceed. The GRP coincided with what the embassy needed and is “a great hook,” as Mandel describes it, to deploy re- sources differently. One of two new GRP positions in the economic section has opened up the opportunity for more coverage and co- operation on environment issues. The other GRP position in the economic section has been used, in part, to expand anticorruption and decentralization activities. And the new F O C U S INDONESIA: Poster Child for the GRP