Law Number 6 of 2014 concerning Villages gives villages the freedom to manage themselves and carry out development in accordance with the needs of their residents. The Village Law emphasizes that the government must provide opportunities for villages to become more independent in running their government, without excessive intervention from the central government, provincial government or district/city government. Past experience which places villages only as an extension of the government’s authority over them provides a lesson that realizing village independence requires more serious attention.
All stakeholders involved in efforts to encourage village independence are required to have the same perspective and are expected to be able to synergize optimally. The central government, for example, should have a unified perspective so that all authorized ministries/institutions can harmonize the measures and regulations issued so that one regulation does not conflict with another. Likewise, district/city governments always need to consider the needs and interests of the village so that every policy made does not clash with the village’s own spirit of independence. On the other hand, village governments must also increase their capacity so as to create more democratic and better village practices over time.
Indeed, aligning perspectives and synergizing to encourage village independence is not easy, it requires a platform that can create a supportive environment. PATTIRO believes that one forum that is still quite effective in creating a conducive environment is a discussion space that prioritizes the spirit of learning.
As part of the effort to create this learning space, PATTIRO also developed an integrated portal called Kedesa.ID and officially introduced it to the public through the Kedesa.ID Portal Launch event on Thursday, June 16 2016. “Kedesa.ID is a forum intended for parties such as civil society organizations, academics, policy makers, and the general public who pay more attention to village issues to be able to synergize openly,” explained PATTIRO Researcher Bejo Untung.
Kedesa.ID has four menus, namely blog, wiki, repository and forum. “The blog menu is provided to contain articles related to the implementation of various regulations regarding villages, village practices, as well as articles in the form of ideas regarding village improvement. “Everyone can contribute freely by first registering for free,” explained Bejo in his presentation at the Kedesa.ID Portal Launch event in Jakarta.
Meanwhile, Bejo added, a wiki menu is provided to contain discussions and annotation documents on the Village Law that PATTIRO has compiled. Bejo said that every Kedesa.ID account owner can contribute by providing additional information or clarification. Apart from that, the wiki menu also contains various other materials related to village practices.
Furthermore, added Bejo, the repository menu is provided as an online library which accommodates various documents about villages which can be used by practitioners and researchers who are discussing village issues as study material. The last menu, namely the forum menu, is provided for Kedesa.ID users to discuss freely and casually about villages whose topics are determined together. In other words, the Kedesa.ID portal is a learning platform that can be utilized by the wider community who are interested in the issue of village independence. “And, these four menus can be accessed via single sign in (once entering Kedesa.ID),” explained Bejo.
In the future, Bejo hopes that in the future the issues that emerge on Kedesa.ID can become material for offline discussions as a development of the issues found on Kedesa.ID. “Offline meetings are more focused on cross-stakeholder meetings as a follow-up to form policy recommendations. “Apart from that, it is also hoped that the portal can synergize with the village information system, although it is currently unclear what form the village information system will take,” he said.
Simultaneously with the launch of the Kedesa.ID Portal, PATTIRO also held a talk show with the theme “Moving the Village Economy through Village-Owned Enterprises (BUMDesa)” with several speakers such as Head of the BUMDesa Division, Ministry of Villages, Development of Disadvantaged Regions and Transmigration Mulyadin Malik, Village Activist Farid Hadi, and PATTIRO Researcher Agus Salim. Present at this activity were dozens of participants from civil society organizations, academics, central government, PATTIRO strategic partners, and the media.
Please click here to visit the Portal Kedesa.ID.
