Jakarta, (ANTARA News) - Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno L.P. Marsudi will attend Bali Democracy Forum (BDF) Berlin Chapter on Sept 14, 2018, a second event held outside the Asia-Pacific region, after BDF Tunis Chapter of 2017.
The forum, which is jointly hosted by Indonesian Foreign Affairs Ministry and German Federal Foreign Office, and co-sponsored by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, will raise the issues of "Democracy and Migration."
"The purpose of the BDF chapter Berlin is to exchange experiences on migration issues and different implementation of democracy in Asia and Europe," Foreign Ministry`s spokesperson Arrmanatha Nasir told journalists in a press briefing in Jakarta on Thursday.
Indonesia, which has been conducting BDF since 2008 as an open and inclusive annual intergovernmental ministerial-level forum to expand and consolidate democracy in the Asia-Pacific region, is considered capable of discussing those two issues because it has quite good experience not only in strengthening democracy but also in handling migration, according to Nasir.
Migration has remained an important matter in Germany and across Europe, with the number of Syrian refugees continuing to rise, particularly after German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced her open-door policy in 2015.
The following year, more than 1 million refugees reportedly entered Germany, mostly through Bavaria.
Globally speaking, the UN estimates that 258 million people worldwide live in places other than their country of birth, an increase of nearly 50 percent since 2000.
Roughly two out of three international migrants are migrant workers.
As an effort to address this issue, the UN General Assembly will conduct an intergovernmental summit in Marrakesh in December 2018 with a view to adopt the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration.
It will be a duty for both Germany and Indonesia, as fellow UN Security Council non-permanent members for 2019-2020 period, to focus on the migration issue as a contribution to the global peace.
BDF chapter Berlin aims to reach out and confirm both countries` commitment to close cooperation, including through the promotion of democracy, global partnership, multilateralism, and the strengthening of a rule-based world order.
The forum will gather 140 participants from many countries, including Germany, Indonesia, Switzerland, Belgium, Armenia, Austria, UK, India, and Thailand.
"The results of the forum will be used as an input and report to the 11th BDF in Bali in early November this year," Nasir pointed out.
Reporting by Yashinta Difa
Editing by Yoseph Haryadi
Reporter: Yashinta Difa Pramudyani
Editor: Suharto
Copyright © ANTARA 2018
