Rural Development & Poverty Eradication Flagship Programmesin Indonesia 2017

by Zeva Aulia SudanaPURDNet

Indonesia’s current government shows strong supporttowards rural development and poverty eradicationacross the country. Since President Joko Widodo andVice President Jusuf Kalla took office back in 2014, theyestablished what is called the Nawa Cita, which is a setof nine priority agendas for an Indonesia that ispolitically sovereign, economically independent, andpersonality in culture. Among the agendas, one standsout showing its support towards rural development andpoverty eradication. This particular agenda aims to buildIndonesia starting from the outskirts by strengtheningregions and villages within a framework of a unitarystate under the asymmetric decentralisation policy. Thepolicy itself is intended to protect Indonesia’s nationalinterests in border areas, strengthen Indonesia’seconomic competitiveness globally, and to assist areaswith inadequate governance capacity in providing publicservices. The 2014 Village Law (UU Desa) also paved the way forIndonesia’s last mile. There are approximately 74,000villages in Indonesia and since the law was enacted, eachvillage have the right to receive an annual village fund(approx. IDR 1 billion) to implement public projects withthe terms that they prepare a Mid-Term VillageDevelopment Plan (RPJMDes) and VillageAdministration Plan of Action (RKPDes). Villages arealso regarded as autonomous legal entities. Under onenational budget, the Village Law combines operatingbudgets and assets for village level programmes andintroduce new planning and budgeting procedures (per-five year planning and yearly budgeting). There is alsovillage governance called the musyawarah desa orvillage consultative meeting. The law also distinguishesdesa (village) and desa adat (indigenous village). Thegovernment prioritises the 3T category (Tertinggal,Terpencil, Terdepan) or Backward, Remote, and Frontiervillages.

Empowered by Nawa Cita and UU Desa, variousnational and international stakeholders and developmentactors working in the country are further supported in theimplementation of their programmes today. There arenumerous flagship programmes and some highlights areas follows: 1) TNP2K – Tim Nasional Percepatan PenanggulanganKemiskinan (National Team for Accelerating PovertyReduction)

A. Cluster I- Program Keluarga Harapan (PKH) – Family HopeProgramme- Program Bantuan Operasional Sekolah (BOS) –School Operational Assistance Programme- Program Jaminan Kesehatan (JKN) - HealthInsurance Programme- Program Indonesia Pintar melalui Kartu IndonesiaPintar (KIP) – Smart Indonesian Card- Program Bantuan Siswa Miskin (BSM) – PoorStudent Assistance- Program Beras Bersubsidi MasyarakatBerpenghasilan Rendah (Raskin) – Low IncomeCommunity Subsidised Rice Programme (nowgradually changed to Food Vouchers)

B. Cluster IIPNPM Mandiri - National Program for CommunityEmpowerment

C. Cluster IIIProgram Kredit Usaha Rakyat (KUR) – People’sBusiness Credit Programme

2) Indeks Desa Membangun (IDM)A. Jaring Komunitas Wiradesa (JKWD) – Wiradesa

Community NetworkB. Lumbung Ekonomi Desa (LED) – Village

Economic GrowthC. Lingkar Budaya Desa (LBD) – Village Cultural

Circle 3) Dana Desa (Village Development Fund) 4) PEKKA (The Female Headed Family

Empowerment Programme)

5) READ (Rural Empowerment and AgriculturalDevelopment) – Now developing READ-SI Indonesia is a part of the G20 nations, yet ruraldevelopment and poverty eradication is still homeworkto finish. However, throughout the past decade,Indonesia has made significant progress in tackling theseissues. As of September 2016, the number of poor(people with per capita expenditure per month below thePoverty Line) in Indonesia reached 27.76 million people(10.70%) decreased by 0.25 million people compared toMarch 2016, which amounted to 28.01 million people(10.86%). The percentage of poor people in rural areasdropped from 17.67 million people (14.11%) in March2016 to 17.28 million people (13.96%) in September2016. Nevertheless, many work needs to be done and thegovernment is on the right track keeping open arms tovarious stakeholders form various sectors to cooperatetogether in developing rural landscapes and eradicatingpoverty along the way.