Introductory Note: In 1993 the Government of Japan took the initiative to organize The Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) and I was invited as a guest speaker, in particular on the agenda item “Asian Experience and African Development”. I was very encouraged that Japan, one of the richest countries in the world, gave special attention to the suffering of millions of people in Africa. In my presentation I emphasized the many similarities of the challenges faced by Indonesia and the countries in Africa, including the diversity of its population and the many challenges to be faced. During that occasion, my colleagues who also attended the Conference (professors Sadli, Emil Salim and my other colleagues) had occasions to interact with delegates from different countries in Africa, which later on was followed up with many visits by Sadli and Emil Salim to those countries. The intensive interactions with the actual problems they saw in Africa strengthened their convictions in arguing for the relief of the debt-ridden countries in their meetings with officials of the multilateral agencies (the World Bank and the IMF) as well as in their meetings with representatives of the highly developed countries. It was encouraging news for all of us when the multilateral agencies finally introduce the HIPC (Heavily Indebted Poor Countries) debt relief for the highly indebted developing countries, although the pace of relief was unfortunately slow.