Ministry of Home Affairs Urges Village Officials to Make Progress

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Village officials are urged to take the lead in advancing villages, transforming them into economic hubs that remain relevant to the younger generation. This call was made by the Director General of Village Governance (Dirjen Bina Pemerintahan Desa) at the Ministry of Home Affairs, Eko Prasetyanto Purnomo Putro, during the opening of a training program for village officials and institutional administrators in Bandar Lampung on Tuesday, October 3, 2023.

"Let's push for progress," said Eko. "This four-day program will serve as a catalyst. After this, it's up to you, how and in which direction you'll take this progress," he added.

According to him, significant financial aid to villages can be utilized to drive progress. Eko noted that the current situation is different from the past when village funds were minimal. In the past, the village budget was only around Rp 50 million. Meanwhile, today, villages receive a significantly larger budget.

Furthermore, current digital technology also facilitates village officials in obtaining useful information to drive progress in their respective villages. "Technology has made it possible. Look at the advanced villages. Visit, observe, replicate. Back then there was no budget, now what else do we need? We just need the will and commitment," he stated.

Eko also emphasized the importance of village officials conducting evaluations of their villages. "We need to evaluate the status of our village. Is it self-reliant, self-made, or self-sufficient? How big is the revenue? How much before and after I took office?" he asked.

Director of Facilitation for LKAD, PKK, and Posyandu, Chaerul Dwi Sapta, added that the training is carried out for 8 weeks across 33 provinces, from the 3rd week of September to the 2nd week of November 2023.

"And now we are entering the fourth batch," he said. Based on data from the National Management Consultant (NMC), as of now, 21,190 participants have been trained out of the national target of 133,832 (16 percent). Meanwhile, the number of trained villages has reached 5,576 out of the target of 33,458 villages (17 percent).

This training is part of the Village Government Strengthening and Development Program (P3PD), a collaboration between the Indonesian government and the World Bank. (*)

INFO TEMPO

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