Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Palestine Conference Ends with Aid Commitments
Source: The Jakarta Post
Tony Hotland

The Ministerial Conference on Capacity Building for Palestine ended here Monday with nearly 60 countries committing to providing technical assistance to development projects expected to benefit more than 10,000 Palestinians.

Some 90 projects were tabled during the one-day conference, which was opened by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, and implementation will be ensured with the establishment of a five-yearly review under the ambitious New Asian-African Strategic Partnership (NAASP) framework.

Indonesian and South Africa, as the current NAASP co-chairs until 2009, will coordinate the monitoring mechanism with the Palestinian authority until 2013.

"As a co-host, Indonesia has pledged to undertake training programs for 1,000 Palestinians over the next five years in partnership with governmental departments and the private sector," said Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda, who closed the conference.

Indonesia will likely be involved in diplomat training, water management, small and medium enterprise development, aquaculture, scholarship provision, fire brigade training and others.

"This list isn't a closed one because countries will continue to add to it," Hassan said.

The projects had been drawn up by Palestine, whose ministers presented them.

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said he looked at the conference as the beginning of a long process that had started with the cohesive relations of countries at the conference.

"Our need for this capacity building assistance will remain there as we continue to seek freedom. Even after we gain independence, we'll still need assistance from Asian and African countries.

"These countries have had similar experiences as ours, so the advice and the assistance have more advantages as they are better-tailored to our needs, unlike what we get from donor countries," he said.

Almost 220 participants from 56 countries took part in the conference in what the Palestinian authority called a show of solidarity like the 1955 Asia-Africa Conference in Bandung, West Java.

More than 50 years later, Palestine is the only remaining occupied territory.

The conference comes on the wave of previous conferences in the U.S. city of Annapolis that politically revived peace talks between Palestine and Israel, and in Paris where donors pledged some US$7.7 billion for Palestinian development projects.

Indonesia has been a staunch supporter of a Palestinian state, and does not have diplomatic relations with Israel.