By: Piyush Verma
The following article originally appeared in The Jakarta Post on July 27, 2026.
When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi left Jakarta on July 8, he left behind the densest package of India-Indonesia agreements in years — spanning critical minerals and rare earths, solar energy, green hydrogen, bioenergy and civil nuclear cooperation.
The visit capped 18 months of unusual diplomatic momentum: President Prabowo Subianto's Republic Day visit to New Delhi in January 2025, the first foreign ministers' Joint Commission Meeting in four years this June and now the first bilateral summit between the two leaders.
The strategic rationale is strong on both sides. Indonesia holds the world's largest nickel reserves and accounts for more than half of global production, but its refining sector is dominated by a single foreign partner; India offers diversification and a vast market for battery materials. India, meanwhile, added roughly 26 GW of solar capacity in the first half of 2026 and has built digital public infrastructure at continental scale, while Indonesia's solar fleet remains modest despite its equatorial potential. The rare-earths memorandum, the SAIL–Krakatau Steel joint venture and the clean-energy commitments in the joint statement all point in the right direction.
The bilateral agenda deserves the momentum it has. At the same time, the scale of Indonesia’s energy transition calls for a wider circle of partners with similar development realities. The Just Energy Transition Partnership, launched with a US$20 billion pledge at the Bali G20 in 2022, demonstrated Indonesia's ability to mobilize international support. But delivery has lagged: the United States has stepped back, only about US$3.1 billion of the enlarged US$21.4 billion pledge has been approved, early coal retirements have yet to begin, and renewables supplied around 18 percent of electricity generation in April 2026. The lesson is not that international finance has failed, but that no single financing platform, however well-intentioned, can carry a transition of this scale. Indonesia is right to widen its options.
This diplomatic moment therefore offers a second opportunity built on the India-Indonesia relationship: closer cooperation with the India-Brazil-South Africa Dialogue Forum, or IBSA. The promise is not another large pledge, but a different model of partnership among peers that have built solar programs, biofuel economies and digital public infrastructure at scale.
Often dismissed as dormant after its last full summit in 2011, IBSA returned to leaders' level in Johannesburg in November 2025 with an agenda covering: green energy and natural farming to disaster resilience, cybersecurity and AI. South Africa assumed the rotating chair, placing climate action and just energy transitions among its priorities. For Jakarta, structured cooperation with IBSA could convert bilateral momentum into collaboration across three continents. Call it IBSA+Indonesia.
What distinguishes IBSA from the many groupings Indonesia already belongs to is its method. Cooperation is demand-driven and largely free of policy conditionality, as demonstrated by the IBSA Fund's development projects in other developing countries, or the proposed Digital Innovation Alliance, which focuses on transferring working systems rather than prescribing reforms. Indonesia would come to this table not simply as a beneficiary, but as a provider of solutions.
Energy is where the partnership could deliver first. Four tracks stand out.
First, critical minerals. Indonesia's nickel, Brazil's niobium and rare earths, South Africa's platinum-group metals and manganese, and India's processing ambitions and demand create a complementary resource base. An IBSA+Indonesia compact on value addition, refining standards and transparent pricing would give all four countries greater leverage as supply chains become central to geopolitical competition.
Second, Solar: India's 162 GW of solar within a total of 288 GW of renewable capacity, its 500 GW non-fossil target by 2030, and the International Solar Alliance offer Indonesia deployment experience, rooftop program design and manufacturing partnerships suited to archipelagic grids.
Third, biofuels. Brazil has the world's most mature ethanol economy, Indonesia operates the ambitious B40 biodiesel mandate and is moving toward B50, while India has achieved nationwide E20 blending five years ahead of schedule. Together, they could help shape Global South fuel standards, including for sustainable aviation fuel. The Global Biofuels Alliance, which India and Brazil have invited Indonesia to join, provides a ready platform for investment and technical cooperation.
Fourth, finance. South-South co-financing through national development banks and institutions such as India's NaBFID, Brazil's BNDES, South Africa's DBSA, and Indonesia's PT SMI could address gaps exposed by the JETP. Barely 1.5 percent of Indonesia's public package came as grants, much of it earmarked for donor priorities. Peer-led development finance can offer longer tenors, greater tolerance for local-currency risk and more alignment with national priorities, precisely what coal retirement and archipelagic grid expansion require.
Indonesia is not an awkward addition to IBSA; it is the missing piece. The G20 has just passed through four consecutive Global South presidencies: Indonesia in 2022, India in 2023, Brazil in 2024 and South Africa in 2025. Jakarta also joined BRICS as a full member in January 2025. IBSA defines itself as a forum of large, pluralistic, multi-ethnic democracies of the South. No country fits that description more naturally than the republic that convened Bandung in 1955 and co-authored the Global South playbook.
The bilateral momentum Modi and Prabowo have built is real and overdue. Extending it into IBSA+Indonesia would put that momentum to work at a larger scale: transition finance on fairer terms, technology transfer across the South and stronger collective bargaining power. From Bandung to Johannesburg, the principle remains the same: the Global South does best when it helps set the table. Jakarta helped set it first. Pulling up a chair at IBSA's table would be a natural next step, and a gain not only for the Global South but for the world.