Regional Conference On Humanitarian Aid: Minister Of Foreign Affairs Retno Promotes The Spirit Of Indonesian Gotong Royong

Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi. (Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

JAKARTA - Access to humanitarian assistance has become very important for the Asia Pacific region, which has experienced various natural and humanitarian emergencies in the last two years.

This was conveyed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs Retno Marsudi, while attending the opening of the Regional Conference on Humanitarian Assistance or the 2021 Hybrid Humanitarian Assistance Regional Conference (RCHA) Wednesday, October 6.

"More than a quarter of the world's conflicts occur in Asia and the Pacific, a region that is now host to 4.4 million refugees. This urgent condition has worsened with the COVID-19 pandemic," he said when opening RCHA 2021 which took place on October 6-7.

Reflecting on the COVID-19 pandemic, Foreign Minister Retno said that there was a need for a stronger transformation of cooperation, an unprecedented response to countermeasures, so that assistance could be as needed and on target.

"This is why the need for RCHA, an arena for humanitarian officers and activists to be connected to each other. I also hope that this regional conference can be a momentum to build a solid regional network of national and local humanitarian actors," said Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi.

On this occasion, Foreign Minister Retno said that local values provide an understanding of the spirit behind the humanitarian actions carried out.

"In Indonesia, the spirit of mutual cooperation is alive and well. This spirit encourages people to help each other, when they are happy or in trouble," he said.

Meanwhile, the Director General of Multilateral Cooperation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Febrian Alphyanto Ruddyard, who is also the chair of the conference, said that the 2021 RCHA invited 21 countries and nine international organizations in the Asia Pacific.

"This is the first forum in the Asia Pacific that specifically discusses humanitarian aid issues and was initiated by Indonesia since last 2019," he explained in a statement after the opening of the conference.

"This year, the theme is 'Advancing Humanitarian Capacities in a Changing World: National and Local Leadership'. By taking into account the experience of handling the COVID-19 pandemic, national and local humanitarian actors are increasingly playing an important role," he said.

He added that one thing that is interesting in this conference, there will be practical outcome documents that can be a reference for humanitarian actors in 21 countries, containing a database of contact points of humanitarian actors and a database of expertise of humanitarian actors.