THE EDITOR – Strengthening villages is necessary to prevent urbanization. When urbanization occurs, as it did in Japan and South Korea, other problems will arise, such as unbalanced population demographics.
The Prabowo Subianto-Gibran Rakabuming Raka administration places importance on villages in the Asta Cita. Point 6 mentions the importance of building the country from villages and from below for economic equality and poverty eradication.
The strengthening of villages is in line with the initial vision-mission made by President Joko Widodo. The Head of State emphasized his commitment to building Indonesia from the periphery, one of which is by strengthening villages. In principle, villages and urban villages have a very important role as they are at the forefront of development and serve the community directly.
The government has also created various programmes for the development of villages. This is evidenced by the issuance of Law No. 6/2014 on Villages, which was amended into Law No. 3/2004 on Villages. Through this regulation, villages are no longer just a collection of ordinary communities, but are part of the government system.
“Second, village and disadvantaged area institutions are created. And third, the most important thing, is the village budget,” said Minister of Home Affairs Muhammad Tito Karnavian.
The Minister also encouraged the strengthening of villages as new economic hubs that are truly alive and do not rely solely on urban work. Villages are expected to be able to create jobs, contribute to development, and support the vision of Indonesia Emas 2045.
To make this happen, village heads need to have skills, including entrepreneurship, which can increase regional per capita income (PAD) and village per capita income (PADes).
“The key is that the village head must have skills. Not just a strong head, but a strong leader. A strong leader is one who has power, has followers, but also has a concept to think of where to take the village,” he said.
In response to this challenge, the Ministry of Home Affairs, in collaboration with the Ministry of Villages, Development of Disadvantaged Regions, and Transmigration (Kemendes PDTT), the Coordinating Ministry for Human Development and Cultural Affairs (Kemenko PMK), the Ministry of National Development Planning, and the Ministry of Finance, designed the Strengthening Village Governance and Development Programme (P3PD).
P3PD has been running since 2020 and will end this year. The programme aims to strengthen the capacity of village institutions so as to improve the quality of village spending.
P3PD training includes basic training on village apparatus; training on determining, confirming, and validating village borders; training/technical guidance on the use of village financial and asset management applications; training on strengthening the Village Advisory Body (BPD), training on strengthening the PKK, training on strengthening village cooperation, training on strengthening village community institutions/village customary institutions, and training on strengthening posyandu.
In addition to village heads, according to the Acting Director of Deconcentration, Assistance and Cooperation of the Directorate General of Bina Adwil at the Ministry of Home Affairs, Edi Cahyono, P3PD also trained sub-district heads. This training targets 1,007 sub-districts from 60 districts in 10 provinces. This training will guide sub-district heads as village supervisors in directing quality village spending.
During the pretest, said Edi, many sub-district heads did not seem to fully understand how their guidance functioned to the village in achieving quality village expenditure.
“However, after the post test, the before-after can be seen, that the sub-district is very strategic for this. Through the synchronization function of cross-sector coordination in the sub-district in the ‘Rumah Bersama’ forum,” he explained.
Cutting Time
P3PD is considered successful in cutting the time of efforts to increase the capacity of village officials by decades. For example, the implementation of capacity building of village apparatus in East Java, according to the Head of Village Community Empowerment (PMD), the East Java Regional Budget is only able to train 500 village apparatus each year.
“East Java through P3PD has successfully trained 15,000 village officials. 15,000 divided by 500, 30. That means P3PD can cut 30 years to train village officials in East Java,” said Director General of Village Government Development (Bina Pemdes) of the Ministry of Home Affairs La Ode Ahmad P Bolombo in Aceh Province, Banda Aceh, Wednesday (16/10).
On that occasion, La Ode praised the enthusiasm of the village apparatus training participants from Aceh. The province at the end of Sumatra Island sent the most participants to be trained. In fact, the number of participants exceeded those from provinces in Java. He also hopes that they will continue to learn and hone their knowledge through the online learning management system (LMS).
If the village government succeeds in developing itself like the regional government, La Ode believes that every village will be able to face digital development in the future.
“If the village is successful, then the region will be successful as well,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Head of the Aceh Village Community Empowerment Office (DPMG), Aznal Zahri, said the training was a solution for village officials to improve performance, motivation, and dedication.
“Some participants are 65 years old, some are in their twenties. But the sixties had extraordinary enthusiasm. They underwent four full days of training until completion,” said Aznal.
Expanding Insight
Sabtu Kene, Head of Oba Village, North Oba Sub-District, Tidore Islands City, North Maluku, admitted that he is now more confident in developing the beach tourism area around the village.
The beach is called Muara Oba Beach. It has views of Tidore and Ternate islands and was once used as one of the images on Indonesia’s Rp1,000 currency.
“After participating in the P3PD training, I keep thinking about developing our beach tourism as I have more insight,” said Sabtu Kene.
One of the inputs he implemented from the P3PD training was to add entertainment tours that previously did not exist at Muara Oba Beach. The training also made Oba Village Government officials feel more passion for doing what they were doing.
The same thing was conveyed by Wahyu Nugroho, Head of Sambirejo Village, Central Java. According to him, his people are no longer just spectators when investors come in as he has succeeded in drafting a new spatial design that involves the community in village development.
The first thing he did in early 2024 was to coordinate with the authorities to draw the village boundaries. The aim was to find out what potential Sambirejo Village has.
Sambirejo Village is famous for its beautiful temples. Among them are Ijo Temple, Barong Temple, Nigiri Temple, and Duwung Temple, to Sumur Bandung.
This has caught the attention of the investors and got them interested in building their businesses in the village.
“When the village has independent planning, investment will come in,” he said. (Translated by: Khopipah Indah Lestari/ADVERTORIAL)
