Village Funds Increase Expected to Reduce Inequality

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Acting Director General of Village Governance (Plh. Dirjen Bina Pemdes) at the Ministry of Home Affairs (Kemendagri), La Ode Ahmad P Bolombo, stated that the government has paid significant attention to villages by providing village funds from 2015 to 2023, with the amount increasing threefold.

The allocation of these funds is expected to enhance public services to rural communities and narrow the gap between villages and cities. "The Village Fund per village has increased threefold from Rp 280.3 million per village in 2015 to Rp 907.1 million per village in 2023," he said while closing the Capacity Building Training for Village Government Officials and Village Institutional Executives in Banda Aceh on Wednesday, November 8, 2023.

The total Village Funds from 2015 to 2023 amount to Rp 538.9 trillion. There has been a consistent increase in the transfer of Village Funds each year. In 2015, the allocation was Rp 20.67 trillion, and it has continued to rise, reaching Rp 70 trillion in 2023.

According to La Ode, to improve the welfare of the people and narrow the gap, the government has initiated the Village Governance and Development Strengthening Program (P3PD). This program, in collaboration with the World Bank, involves training to enhance the capacity of village officials and village administrators.

"Skilled human resources will be able to manage the potential of natural resources to achieve the welfare of the community and stimulate economic growth in the village," he stated.

He explained that the improvement in welfare and efforts to narrow the gap aligns with President Joko Widodo's third Nawacita, which aims to build Indonesia from the periphery. The approach involves strengthening regions and villages within the framework of the Republic of Indonesia.

So far, 311,656 kilometers of village roads, 1,602,227 meters of bridges, 12,297 village markets, 5,413 small reservoirs, 572,8112 units of irrigation, and 249,415 units of retaining walls have been built.

Meanwhile, Director of Facilitation for Village Financial Planning and Assets Lutfi added that the P3PD training aims to strengthen the institutional capacity of villages in the governance of village administration, especially to improve the quality of village spending.

The national training target is 33,458 villages and 131,610 people. "As of November 6, 2023, the national achievement of this training is 25,979 villages (77.65%), 99,665 people (76%) have participated in the training," he said.

For Aceh Province, this training targets 1,888 villages with a total of 7,552 participants. "And until the eighth batch, the number of villages participating in the training is 1,832 villages (97%), with 7,066 participants (93.56%)," he explained. (*)

INFO TEMPO

Click here to get the latest news updates from Tempo on Google News