Motivation Letter

My name is Wira Arif Budiman. I am a post graduate student from University of Indonesia. I
took International Relations (IR) as my master degree and therefore I obtained a Master of
Science in early 2018.

Since I learnt IR, my passion to deepen the understanding on governance is getting bigger as
well. It is all because in IR, I also learnt about policy issues. It has been proven that strength of a
country always depends on how good they establish and manage their governance.

In Indonesia – in my opinion – there are several issues that need to address in order to establish
good governance, such as (1) corruption, collusion and nepotism in almost every sector, (2)
uneven development between the center and region areas, (3) law enforcement, and (4) social
inequality between rich and poor people. Those issues have been faced for a quit long time since
its independent in 1945, even so, the challenges still emerge until now. The terms to reform
governmental system in order to create good governance are also required by World Bank in
order to receive financial help.

The World Bank report in 1998 assessed that the government that was better able to use its
assistance was a government with good economic performance. The report recommends that
assistance should be linked to the performance and targeted to countries whose effective
institutions and producing good policies. As a result, the World Bank and several donor countries
have shifted their focus and tried to encourage good governance in the recipient country by
providing assistance and attaching political requirements as a prerequisite.

As Indonesian citizen, I realize that Indonesia can be one of the strongest countries in the world.
Indonesia has numerous of natural resources such as coal, minerals, oil and marine. However, the
annual GDP growth (in 2017 and 2018) is lower compare to other Southeast Asian countries
such as Vietnam, Laos and Philippine. It happens because we have mismanagement and contra
productive policies. Besides, corruption which was done by many regional leaders has also been
our biggest problem to face from to time. Instead, it could be overcome if the government could
create a good system prevent it.

The phenomenon above is the reason why I want to go for governance study. I believe that if
Indonesia could establish an effective bureaucracy and good governance, another important
aspect like economy will grow simultaneously. Foreign and domestic investors will invest their
funds in Indonesia and it will create job fields to the local people. The trust from other countries
and international institutions (such as the World Bank) will increase and more interested to
cooperate with Indonesia, especially in the economy field. By doing so, I believe that Indonesia
could be an advanced country in the future.