IPB University Rural Sociology Expert Notes on a Decade of Village Funds: 67 Percent of Village Welfare is at Low Level
IPB University Rural Sociology Expert, Prof Sofyan Sjaf, said that the lack of transparency in the use of village funds and the lack of community participation and supervision of village funds have paved the way for fraud.
The Kompas survey results show that citizen participation in monitoring village funds in this decade is still lacking. According to Prof Sofyan, this proves that the public space to find out what the utilization of village funds is in fact not as transparent as expected.
“Apparently the patterns for making development decisions such as village or hamlet deliberations, do not necessarily open up space for full citizen participation,” he said when giving a statement to the reporter of IPB University Public Relations (22/2).
The results of a study conducted by Prof Sofyan related to the village welfare index show, of the 289 villages in Indonesia, only 0,2 percent of villages are in the high welfare category. Meanwhile, 67 percent of villages are in the low category and the rest are in the medium category.
According to Prof Sofyan, this percentage indicates that equitable development utilizing village financing sources and village funds has not been optimally oriented for the welfare of the community.
“As far as I understand and live, in the planning process, both village deliberations and hamlet deliberations have not been based on precise data and have not been based on program policies that prioritize the welfare of villagers,” he said.
For this reason, he continued, village heads and village officials must be able to identify the position of community welfare which includes five aspects, namely clothing, food, shelter; cultural education; health; human rights guarantees; and infrastructure and the environment.
“When these five aspects have been identified, the deliberation will be effective at both the village and dusun levels. Thus, all residents are able to see their position as residents of the village,” said the Dean of the Faculty of Human Ecology (Fema) IPB University.
“I am sure that the village and hamlet deliberation mechanisms are only present at the village elite level, so they do not have a methodology or framework of approaches that must be made to the community,” he said.
Furthermore, Prof Sofyan said, villages must build a village activity plan based on data information. The results of the identification that has been done are then conveyed to the public.
“Information delivery can be done by utilizing technology or social media and public spaces about village development policies,” he said.
In addition, Prof Sofyan said that villages must conduct regular evaluations. This effort is important to have a good impact on the development process of each village. (AS) (IAAS/LAN)
