Berlin and the Indonesian capital Jakarta, a city of millions, have been partner cities since 1994.
The two cities have engaged in active cooperation ever since, especially when it comes to business, culture, and sports. Other current priorities of our partnership include “smart city” issues, administrative modernization, and promoting innovation.
The city governments of Berlin and Jakarta are in close contact. One great addition to our cooperation as partner cities is the “integrated expert” who has been sent to Jakarta since 2019. This expert works with Jakarta’s administration on digital technologies in city government and on smart city innovations. The project is supported by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development in cooperation with Berlin and Jakarta.
The Berlin-Jakarta city partnership is sustained by a wide variety of stakeholders, such as associations, sports schools, journalists, and artists, as well as strong community ties. The diverse range of projects and events gives a special boost to exchange in the areas of culture and sports.
In 2019, Berlin and Jakarta celebrated the 25th anniversary of their city partnership with many individual projects on various themes that took place throughout the year, with Berlin helping to organize or providing financial support to these projects.
Since December 2019, the project “Smart Change – Strengthening Urban Governance, Prosperity and Innovation in Jakarta” has been reinforcing our collaboration in the area of digital technologies, smart city innovations, and startups. The project runs until the end of July 2023 and is funded by the EU’s Partnerships for Sustainable Cities program. The goal is to promote good governance and sustainable urban development in line with the UN’s 2030 Agenda and its sustainable development goals (SDGs). The project led to a joint work program that included a number of reciprocal delegation visits, online conferences, and workshops, among other things. In addition, 2023 will see the opening of the “Jakarta Future City Hub” – as a product of the project – as a physical space for smart city innovations in Jakarta. This space should result in even greater cooperation on future-oriented themes.
In May 2022, Anies Baswedan, Jakarta’s governor at the time, visited Berlin to step up the collaboration on the smart city project, among other things, and to discuss ideas with Governing Mayor Franziska Giffey for strengthening our city partnership in the future. These ideas were further developed with Governor Baswedan during Permanent Secretary Ana-Maria Trăsnea’s trip to Jakarta in August 2022 for the U20 summit. The discussions made it clear that issues like digital transformation, startups, climate action and environmental protection, electric mobility, and democracy support hold great potential for the partnership between the two cities.
