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The first meeting of the Bali Democracy Forum was held at Nusa Dua, Bali between 10-11 December 2008.
This new Indonesian initiative has been set up to provide a forum for discussing how to build and consolidate democracy in the Asian region – and this was the main theme for the meeting.
Thirty two countries from ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and South Asia, and as far afield as Lebanon, Papua New Guinea, China and New Zealand attended. Disarmament Minister Georgina te Heuheu led the New Zealand delegation at the forum, which was hosted by Indonesian President Yudhoyono, and co-chaired by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
At the meeting New Zealand endorsed the Indonesian initiative to encourage democracy in the region, and registered New Zealand’s interest in being part of this new Asian forum.
Georgina te Heuheu emphasised in her speech (see below) the role of governments as servants of the public will, and set out some of New Zealand’s experiences both at home and in the Pacific. She also outlined New Zealand’s efforts to reconcile the interests of Maori with the wider population, instancing the Maori parliamentary seats and, more recently, changes to the electoral system which have allowed our increasingly diverse population to be better represented in Parliament.
The Bali Democracy Forum is one of a range of democracy initiatives that have emerged in recent times such as the Asia-Pacific Democracy Partnership, the Partnership for Democratic Governance and the Community of Democracies.
Independently of these various initiatives, New Zealand is committed to the promotion of democracy and systems that promote accountability and transparency in the Pacific. For example, the New Zealand Agency for International Development (NZAID) has allocated NZ$13 million to strengthening governance in the region.
Future annual Bali Democracy Forum Ministerial meetings will give direction to a programme of technical seminars, workshops, research and exchanges between senior officials and experts. The workshops and the Forum itself will be supported by the newly established Institute for Peace and Democracy at the University of Udayana in Bali.
