First Month at Post / Front Office Rotation

Since arriving in Indonesia, after a brief two weeks getting settled in and supporting my home office in procurement, I've been on rotation to the Mission's Front Office.  Essentially, this position is a mix of being an Executive Assistant and being a Staff Aide.  Responsibilities include preparing agendas for senior staff meetings, taking notes in meetings for the Mission Director, and miscellaneous document preparation in response to "Embassy Taskers" (these are requests from USAID, typically for State or for the Ambassador, to provide input on documents, prepare talking points or briefing memos for meetings, and various fact sheets on USAID programming).

So far, it's been a pretty good experience and I'm learning a lot about how the Mission operates, the USAID interaction with the embassy community at-large, and the various personalities and protocol within the Mission.  A fun aspect to this rotation is attending various events and meetings with the Mission Director and getting to see some of the programs that we are implementing.

Socially, there has been a pretty good group of other officers in Jakarta.  I tend to spend most of my free time going out with other USAID colleagues and colleagues I knew through language class.  Continuing to work on building the social network, but I'm pretty content with things so far.  Jakarta has a variety of places to go out to eat, numerous elaborate brunches on Sundays, and lots of shopping options.  I think prices generally are higher than other South-east Asian countries, namely Bangkok, but are still OK.  There also seem to be a lot of nightlife options and I hope to eventually check those out as well.

PRESTASI
The first event I attended was the PRESTASI Pre-Academic Training Orientation.  This is a one of USAID Indonesia's scholarship programs for graduate studies.  This allows Indonesians to pursue Master level degrees in the US or in Indonesia.  This particular launch was to first meeting for the scholarship recipients to get together and understand processes for applying to universities and how the scholarship worked now that they were selected.  Various USAID technical offices came and congratulated the recipients as well as imparted the imperative that they study and obtain the knowledge and skills in their various fields and bring that back to make an impact in Indonesia.

USAID Mission Director and Office Reps speak to the scholars.

Group shot with the scholarship recipients.

MTV EXIT Documentary Launch
I also attended the MTV EXIT launch event for the anti-trafficking documentary that takes place in Indonesia.  This event took place at the Hard Rock Cafe Jakarta.  The event was attended by Indonesian celebrities and the various supporters of MTV EXIT, which includes USAID, AusAid, ASEAN, and more.  The documentary series is just part of the MTV EXIT campaign and also would include a concert that would be held in the city of Bandung in Indonesia.

The Mission Director providing remarks at the event.

Mission Director with an Indonesian official and the project head of MTV EXIT.

Secretary Clinton Visit to Jakarta
Secretary Clinton also dropped by Jakarta during her travels.  During her time here, as per protocol, she held a meet and greet for embassy staff.  It was only for a very brief moment of time, but it was still good and she commented in her address the great work of USAID's programs, particularly our education programs here in Indonesia.  Unfortunately, she didn't have any time for individual photos.  Ah well, maybe some other day.

Being introduced by the Amb. to Indonesia and Amb. to ASEAN

So that pretty much highlights some of the more noteworthy events thus far.  Looking forward to what else will come.

Weekend Singapore Trip

Had a long weekend and took a trip to Singapore.  Singapore is close and quick to get to with just a 90 minute or so flight from Jakarta.  It was a very impressive city.  What people say about the orderliness and cleanliness holds up for the most part.

View from the taxi ride into the city (traffic free!)

I found the city to be a very English-speaking friendly place as many, many Singaporeans I came across spoke it very well.  Mandarin and other Asian languages were also very prevalent.

We took the subway a lot to get around the city.  It was very quick and convenient with trains coming often.  One thing I never liked about the DC subway was that it took forever to get anyway on it during the weekends as trains came so irregularly that it was usually just easier to drive into town.

One of the many subway stations.

Some of the crosswalks make fun laser sounds to alert the blind when it's safe to cross.

Malls were all over the place with many connected to each other that one could continually be walking in a mall not know they had already traversed through several of them.  One mall we had to visit was the Marina Bay mall.  It had a channel for people wanting to take rides and a skating rink.  It also had some great views of the Marina Bay Sands resort, the most expensive casino/resort property in the world.

The mall at Marina Bay

A view of the most expensive hotel in the world.

Entrance to the Art Museum.

The only skating rink I've seen where people wear ice skates but there is NO ice.

We also took a trip to the Singapore Chinatown.  First impression, this was the cleanest Chinatown I've ever been to.  It almost reminded me of how a museum might display a Chinatown.  Very clean, free from any vendors of knockoff Rolexs, pirated DVDs, or fake purses/perfumes.

We ate a late lunch here and had some excellent steamed chicken and visited the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple which supposedly holds a tooth from Buddha.

Pristine Chinatown streets.

Buddha Tooth Relic Temple

 In the evening, there is a light show put on by the Marina Bay Sands each night that was fun to watch.  To finish the night, we strolled the Clarke Quay area that had tons of nightlife with bars, live music, and clubs.
 

The next day, we went to the Sentosa area to go for a walk and see the sights.  The train to cross over had a huge line as there was some sort of event going on at the other side.  We decided instead to just walk around instead.

Yep, we rode this train.

 To finish off, we went to go try chili crab.  Crab cooked and topped with a spicy chili.  Yum!

Overall, it was a short, but great trip.  We saw a lot of Singapore but will definitely have to take another trip to see the rest.  There was still the aquarium, zoo, and Universal Studios to check out.  Plus, there are a number of nightlife places that would be fun to go to as well.  Next time.

First impressions of Indonesia

Made it to post and I'm now in Indonesia and finally got internet.  Jakarta is very much a very busy, crowded city.  I can't help but make comparisons to the only other SE Asia city I know, Bangkok, but am working to stop that and understand the city for itself.

It's very crowded, traffic lives up to its reputation, and the pollution is rough.  I've lived in Beijing before as well as spent time in Bangkok, but Jakarta really beats them out in these two categories.  I think what really is a game changer in the traffic and pollution categories is public transportation infrastructure.  Beijing has it's subway system and Bangkok has the sky-train: these really make a significant difference.

Housing in Jakarta is pretty nice.  I'm in government owned housing temporarily which is a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom apartment but the living room and dining room are spacious and it's walkable within 5-10 minutes to work.  Later, I'll be moved to one of the many sky-rise apartments in this city.  In both cases, the housing is nice and a significant step up from where I was at in DC for the past year (renting a room in a basement).

The embassy community in Jakarta is very large.  Spent the first couple days getting acclimated and doing various tasks related to in-processing: HR related forms and tasks, begging IT in DC to close my account so the Jakarta Mission could open one for me, security and health briefings, and courtesy meetings with senior management within AID and the embassy.

One perspective that has changed for me is my attitude toward doing rotations.  For Junior Officers with AID, our first tour is actually classified as a training position.  Depending on the post/Mission, there are varying ways this is implemented.  Some have first tour officers work directly in their functional area throughout their entire tour to improve their skills and knowledge in that field.  Others will do a mix of work in their functional areas combined with rotations throughout the Mission in other offices.   The ADS Chapter on USAID's Foreign Service Career Officers has more in-depth information.

At first, I was inclined to want to stay in my functional area to really develop and show off my capabilities in that work.  However, after speaking with several senior leaders in the Mission, I was often advised to consider really taking advantage of this opportunity to work in the other functional areas and gain breadth of knowledge of how USAID Missions operate.  This would allow me to better understand development and provide insight to make me a better leader in the future.  So now, I'm planning my rotations but keeping in close contact with my home office.  While rotating to various offices, I'll continue to perform minor assistance/acquisition actions.  I think with the experiences I've had in DC and BKK so far coupled with the new rotations throughout the Mission, I'll be well-equipped as I progress through my career.  We'll see.


And now, just a few pics from some places I've passed by in the brief time I've been here.

Interesting bar name.

The statues in front of the luxury malls Grand Indonesia and Plaza Indonesia.

Fashion show within the mall.

I like to call these "snake-fruit" due to their appearance and texture.

Nice presentation for displaying bananas.

A Values Based Foreign Policy

  

This week, the USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah hosted an All-Hands with Deputy Administrator Donald Steinberg to showcase various initiatives and innovations going on in the Agency and address any employee concerns or questions.

The event began with the Shah giving an opening address where he said that the U.S. is a nation of values and USAID must serve as the face of America abroad.
That USAID's core is a "values based" foreign policy.  I thought this was an interesting perspective of the role of the US's humanitarian assistance and development assistance strategy.

This got me thinking to two things: one, what are the US's values, and two, how do US values relate to the efforts of USAID?

U.S. foreign assistance has always had the twofold purpose of furthering America's interests while improving lives in the developing world. USAID carries out U.S. foreign policy by promoting broad-scale human progress at the same time it expands stable, free societies, creates markets and trade partners for the United States, and fosters good will abroad." (USAID - Who We Are)

Late last year, Thomas Nides, Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources, wrote an opinion piece in Politico titled "Pursuing U.S. values and self-interest".  In this piece, he mentions various examples of the U.S. exercising a value based diplomacy with examples in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.  In Tunisia and Egypt, he explains how we work to support open governments that respect the rights and voices of its people as well as stability and conditions that may become economic and national security opportunities for the U.S.  And in Libya, he talks about how we provide support to local institutions and civil society groups in advocating for less corruption and free political speech. 

We don’t spend money on diplomacy and development just to feel good about ourselves. We fight hunger, stop oppression, prevent global pandemics and respond to crises abroad, because that is the most cost-effective way to enhance U.S. national security – to protect America and the American people – and to create jobs here at home. It has the additional benefit of also being the right thing to do. (Thomas Nides, Pursuing U.S. values and self-interest)

So an interesting exercise is to then try to understand what American values are and how those are conveyed in the programs that we do.  Really, foreign assistance is a very interesting strategy for implementing foreign policy.  It's not just helping others abroad, but providing real benefits to the U.S. while showcasing values of America.  Foreign assistance is such a useful instrument in foreign policy that traditional recipients of assistance are now moving to becoming donors to take advantage, as indicated by India working to setup its own foreign assistance agency.  Nides ends the piece stating that with foreign assistance, "Our national values, moral compass and self-interest are all perfectly aligned."

Besides just thoughts on the opening remarks at the All-Hands, presentations were given from various Bureaus on new alliances and initiatives they were working on.  Notably, there were several newer people to USAID that shared their experiences of being with the Agency so far and the importance of being proactive in taking on responsibilities and ownership in work, and not to be afraid to suggest new ways to do things or implement our programs.  It was a common theme to push through bureaucracy to bring about better ways of doing things as that will be the best way of bringing the Agency forward. 

One interesting question that Shah and Steinberg addressed was "when was the Agency going to stop adding additional initiatives so that the work could be actually done?"  They addressed the question saying that they don't see these as new initiatives or work, but rather see them as better or different ways of doing work and bringing a focus to specific programs versus being too spread out and diverse.

In terms of the Agency's current efforts to seek new ways of doing programs and to take every effort to ensure sustainability and capacity building, I really agree with Shah.  If we are truly influencing and changing conditions in the places we operate, it must be sustainable, and if the status-quo isn't working, let's find a different way.  And in terms of initiatives like Feed-the-Future or early child-care health, it's really just outlining the focus areas for where U.S. foreign policy is hoping to make an impact.  All programs can bring about meaningful benefits, but to really make a measurable contribution, we need to focus our efforts on specific objectives. 

I met with the Deputy Assistant Administrator for Asia a few weeks ago to discuss Indonesia and he mentioned how the Mission will soon be working to setup its strategy for the country.  He said to consider a way to think about the objectives in terms of leaving a legacy and what impact the U.S. would want to be able to take credit for and where we could make the most difference.  I think that's how we might really need to approach all of high-level strategic planning, when feasible.