President Prabowo's Foreign Policy Test at the G20 Summit - Academy

Less than a month after his inauguration as Indonesia’s eighth president, Prabowo Subianto will find himself on an international podium in Peru and Brazil in November. During this trip to Latin America, the President will have the opportunity to address a global audience about the direction of his foreign policy for the next five years.

The president and his entourage will fly to Peru to attend the annual summits of the 21 members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and then the Group of 20 (G20) in Brazil. The two multilateral organizations are non-binding groups. While APEC membership is based on its geographical position, G20 membership is decided by members’ GDP.

According to its official website, although G20 decisions are not legally binding, member states make voluntary commitments that carry considerable political weight. Decisions are implemented by relevant bodies such as the International Monetary Fund or the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision.

This year’s G20 summit is particularly crucial given developments across the globe, including in the Middle East. Last year, India hosted the summit. Over the years, what was originally supposed to be a meeting on economic and trade issues has evolved into an informal conclave to collectively steer the direction of global governance more broadly, addressing everything from global health governance to conflict situations.

One of the most critical moments for the G20 occurred in 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine. Western countries threatened to boycott the summit when host Indonesia invited President Vladimir Putin to Bali. Fortunately, the meeting went off without a hitch after Putin declared his absence from Bali.

One of the biggest focuses was on the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. While this effort is now being actively promoted at the World Health Organization, concerns about the next pandemic call for proactivity in ensuring cooperative resilience. In this regard, the plea to accelerate the completion and ratification of the pandemic treaty, among other adjacent instruments, is pertinent.

In light of this, working groups, including Youth 20, adopted consensus communiques as inputs into a series of priority issues to be addressed by Brazil’s leaders. One of the issues that continues to persist even among G20 members is that of the global economic and trade architecture.

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