THE EDITOR – Training for village and sub-district officials is currently underway in almost all parts of Indonesia, selected according to their respective criteria, through the Strengthening Village Governance and Development Programme (P3PD).
A number of institutions and ministries in the country are taking the P3PD training programme seriously and are starting to create new breakthroughs.
Deputy of the Ministry of National Development Planning/National Development Planning Agency Tri Dewi Firgiyanti said that increasing the capacity of village governments is considered capable of designing participatory and accountable village development.
“There are three ministries involved in this, namely the Ministry of Villages and Development of Disadvantaged Regions, the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Coordinating Ministry for Human Development and Cultural Affairs, and the Ministry of Finance,” she said.
If villages are active and recorded, she continued, then the welfare of village communities will be achieved, which will be followed by an increase in the quality of life of the people living in them.
“Poverty will be overcome,” she said.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
Some of the things that the government is currently doing are educating village officials to be technologically literate, teaching village officials how to build partnerships with the private sector or government in the village, monitoring the use of village development budgets, and strengthening village communities’ knowledge of spatially-based village potential.
In addition, there is also harmonizing development between villages, assisting village officials in using village budgets, developing village governance, strengthening alternative funding sources, utilizing village funds, and optimizing village financial governance.
WHY IS TRAINING IMPORTANT?
The government through Law No.16/2014 requires villages to have their own autonomy. This requires improving the quality of village planning and development as well as policy alignment between villages.
Village governance has also made village life more formalized by bureaucracy, which has led to a lack of a sense of community within the village itself.
“There is still a gap in the competence of village officials. And the long tenure of the village head makes the apparatus need training so that they have clear objectives and are in line with supra-village policies,” she said.
It is reported that around 632 village heads in Indonesia have no education at all, 1,561 village heads only graduated from elementary school/equivalent, 42,275 village heads are high school/equivalent graduates, 14,927 village heads graduated from Diploma IV/S1, and 7,252 village heads graduated from S3.
“It is necessary to improve financial accountability and optimize funding,” she said.
WHAT IS THE TRAINING CALLED?
To create self-reliant villages, the Indonesian government is currently running the Strengthening Village Governance and Development Programme (P3PD).
There are five ministries mandated to run this programme, namely the Ministry of Villages and Development of Disadvantaged Regions, the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Coordinating Ministry for Human Development and Cultural Affairs, the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of National Development Planning. This programme aims to make quality village expenditure in accordance with the potential of the community.
On the one hand, P3PD training is held to educate village officials to be more innovative and creative in making policies related to their villages. On the other hand, the community is also considered to be more participatory in encouraging the development of their residence.
Capacity building training for village officials is conducted by the Ministry of Home Affairs through the Directorate General of Village Government Development.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Villages and Development of Disadvantaged Regions targets to increase community capacity through village and local village facilitators.
As a model of this, village field schools, digital villages, and digital ambassadors in villages are prepared.
