Director General of Village Governance: P3PD Opens New Mindset for Village Officials

Secretary of the Directorate General (Sesditjen) of Village Governance (Pemdes) of the Ministry of Home Affairs (Kemendagri) Paudah said this in Jakarta, on Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2023.

"The quality of village spending is not only measured by how much the PADes (Village-Own Revenue) increases. Beyond that, this training actually opens the mindset of the village chief and his/her staff so that village budgets are used for the needs of the community," he said.

The needs of the community, said Paudah, must be in accordance with village potentials. This means that planning and using the Village Budget (APBDes) must be for the benefit of the community.

Paudah explained that from the evaluation results during the month of implementation, P3PD has been running as expected. "About 80 percent has gone well in accordance with what we want to achieve," he said.

During the training session, village officials shared experiences and knowledge on how to manage villages. A number of provinces have now successfully completed the training faster. These provinces include Riau Islands (Kepri), Bangka Belitung, West Nusa Tenggara (NTB), and Bali.

Paudah emphasized that training like this cannot be done only once, but should be held continually. This is considering that the village funds disbursed by the government around Rp538.67 trillion during the 9 years of the implementation of Law No. 6/2014 on Villages, have not yet contributed to the improvement of the national economy.

Until now, the Gross Regional Domestic Product (GRDP) is no more than 2 percent. "It's a bit sad. It has no leverage," he said.

P3PD, according to Paudah, provides a new mindset on how to spend the village budget properly. "They learn to organize administration, plan and manage finances," he explained.

P3PD is a cooperation program between the Indonesian government and the World Bank. This training is targeted for 33,458 villages or nearly 45% of the total number of 75,265 villages, and/or nearly 50% of the total target of 67,000 P3PD villages.

Four people represented each village, including village officials and village administrators, making a total of 133,832 people.(*)

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