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YI: You have the ambassadors of MDGs and there you mentioned football players, artists, maybe local artists?

Wit: Yes, they are particular ambassadors, ambassadors for children, of Unicef, ambassadors of AIDS, ambassadors of development, of poverty, for UN, and so we are encouraging countries also, then, to recruit their own ambassadors, to campaign on this, on MDGs in general, or even particular individual goals in particular.

YI: In Indonesia, your country, what is the priority of the MDGs?

Wit: I think poverty. Poverty has been the choice of the government to prioritize because we see the disparity between the regions in Indonesia regarding poverty is very high. And then education, despite the high rate of enrollment there is also the high rate of dropouts, and so we need to prevent this. And in many parts of Indonesia, the quality of education is low. So education, then, is also a priority. Indonesia is bad in that maternal mortality of Indonesia is high, one of the highest in the world and I think it is because many of our islands, the remote islands, do not have access to free family planning services anymore, and also the health services. And also professional midwives are also declining, and so this is another priority for the government to catch up.

YI: When we talk about development, I don't think we can forget corruption, and the need for governance. I understand that you were a founder of the partnership for governance reform. What is the status of reforms in Indonesia, particularly in government bureaucracies and in particular the military?

Wit: Well, there are some efforts started, and I think it's still a long, long fight, fighting corruption in Indonesia, but at least now there is so much more public control from civil society and from the media, compared to five, ten years ago. Five, ten years ago you see that it's only at the Jakarta level there were anti corruption campaigns, compared to five, ten years ago, it's only in Jakarta and some big cities that you have anti corruption campaigns, now it's all over. Media are opening up corruption cases and now the task is just to push government to be more bold and decisive in their law enforcement. The openness of the press and increasing civil society pressure is I think a good thing. I understand that the new government has a strong commitment to eradicate corruption, but still, we need to see, it is so new, three months. Regarding the military reform, I think we have started to do that since the year 2000, and getting more of the power to the police, in some areas it is better, in some areas it is still not that smooth, this transition from the military to the police.
And then the police, we still need to develop their capacity to be a civilian security force, than what they were trained before as a military security force. So this, the partnership for governance reform, has brought a lot of police reform to be able to do this. I think, now the other sensitive and tricky issue is to get the military out of business. And this is quite tricky, but some groups are trying to do this.

YI: What do you mean by tricky?

Wit: Because it has been done in a very non-transparent way. Information regarding corruption caused by military-linked businesses is not much known, documents are not much available, people know about it, people feel about it, but cannot pinpoint it, that's why it is more difficult, but I think at least within the military community, they have realized this problem and are trying to solve it.

YI: What about corruption among the judiciary?

Wit: That is also one area that is more discussed openly to overcome that, to replace the judges as well also to do some training of a special team of judges that are focusing on anti corruption cases. I think with the Supreme Court, several efforts in that direction have been done, an also to improve the quality of the legal and judicial system and that's why we see that now the legal system is more daring, to punish people that previously could not be punished. Like politicians, governors, parliament members, heads of districts, so I think we are slowly progressing.

YI: I'd like to ask you a little bit about your background. You, almost all of your adult life was spent fighting the establishment, the repressive establishment; you were an activist through and through. I think you've put that aside, you've become in fact part of the establishment, are you optimistic that this MDG of which you are now having to spread the word of will bring change and improve lives?

Wit: Well, if I'm not optimistic, I wouldn't take this job, I think this is an opportunity that I have to grab, that everybody has to grab, while there is this strong commitment, and we have to strike while it's hot, we have to use all opportunities, all summits, all agreements between, international agreements, to hit hard on MDGs, to really do the achievement of MDGs. Even for instance, the tsunami devastation, I see that as an MDG case, because Aceh, on its own, could never, Aceh before the tsunami could never achieve their MDGs in 2015. Because they are so behind, with the conflict, with the poverty there. Now, after the tsunami, I'm campaigning, I'm really advocating for all recovery and reconstruction work of Aceh, to a condition much better than before the tsunami so that they can achieve their MDGs. And I was talking to the CGI leaders, stressing that, and I think everybody could not agree more, the suffering of the Acehnese have to be rewarded with reconstruction that gives them a much better life, and this experience should also enable other disaster stricken areas in Indonesia, or conflict areas as well as underdeveloped areas of Indonesia to benefit from the spirit of rehabilitation and reconstruction, so that they also can achieve their MDGs.
Because I have no worries over the island of Java, or Sulawesi, or Kalimantan, or the rest of Sumatra, to be able to achieve their MDGs, and this is also with other parts of Asia Pacific, all the countries that I've traveled to, I always try not just to talk to governments, but also to civil society, here my background as a former activist is very useful, because then I can give them also recognition that none of the goals are done only by governments, there are always public efforts there.

YI: You started out your career as an activist and now you're an official. How do you put the two together in your current job?

Wit: Well, I think my colleagues, in New York also, think that this is exactly an asset that I have to capitalize, because no goals are being done by governments alone, in poverty, education, health, AIDS, you have so many civil society efforts, university based, women's groups, that are doing something about that, and I need to bridge government and non government like two better, closer together, as well as bridging developed and developing countries, national governments and local governments, so nobody is irrelevant in achieving the MDGs and everybody has been participating one way or another in the achievement of one goal or another, so I am doing a lot of bridging, bridging NGOs, civil society, with governments.

YI: Seems like you're still an activist at heart, and on that note, Ms Witoelar, I'd like to thank you for being with us. And that brings us to an end of this edition of the leaders.