TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The allocation of village funds by the government in the past two years is expected to reduce urbanization.
“I hope urbanization can be stopped by the transfer of village funds,” said the National Planning and Development Agency (Bappenas) Sofyan Djalil in Jakarta, Thursday, June 2, 2016.
In 2016, the government has allocated Rp46.9 trillion village funds from the state budget (APBN) whereby every village is expected to receive roughly Rp800 million, or doubled from last year’s Rp20.76 trillion village funds.
According to Sofyan, urbanization can be reduced if village funds are utilized for development and improvement of village infrastructure, as well as creating job opportunities for villagers.
“However, if such job opportunities in rural areas are not competitive in terms of income, it would be difficult to avoid [urbanization],” he said.
He considered that the maximization of village funds is a unique challenge as it needs human capital that are ready to exploit it.
The establishment of village-owned enterprises (BUMDesa) could also be an option to manage village funds in exploring the potentials of every villages for them to develop further.
ANTARA
