Out of 65 villages spread across Kapuas Hulu, North Kayong, Kubu Raya, Mempawah, Sambas, Sanggau and Sintang Regencies, there is at least one village that is included in the category of very underdeveloped village. Meanwhile, 19 of them are in the category of underdeveloped villages and 37 are in the category of developing villages as well as eight more have become developed villages.
This data is the result of Village Empowerment Index (IDB) survey conducted by Gemawan Institute some time ago and released on Wednesday (20/3) at Pontianak Orchadz Hotel. This activity was presented by Untan Academics, Eddy Suratman and Academics of the State Islamic University of UIN Sunan Kalijaga, Yogjakarta, Abdur Rozaki.
Abdul Rozaki said that with the survey results, it is expected to be able to provide aims and references for development policies, in order to make clear and measurable achievements, both from the local government in this case the village and regency governments, as well as at the provincial government level to make the villages become independent villages.
“In this release of IDB, there are 65 villages spread across West Kalimantan. This is a sample to measure the capability and capacity of the villages.” he explained.
He also added that the village categorization comes from Permendesa No.2 of 2016 concerning the Village Development Index with some indicators in it and there are several additional indicators offered by Gemawan institute to be the benchmarks of the categorization, so that the survey results are expected to be based on facts perceived by the local communities.
“So, besides referring to the Permendesa (village regulations), Gemawan institute also added several assessment indicators.” he explained.
Regarding the indicators used as the benchmarks of IDB categorization, it definitely aims to measure how far is the index of social, economic, environmental resilience as well as the resilience of the village government itself. Then, with the survey results, he hopes that both the local and provincial governments will know the village status in West Kalimantan, or at least it becomes a comparison with the previous and current village situation.
“Not only that, we also hope that the government can find the best solution to improve the status of these villages. For example, from being underdeveloped to become an independent village.” he added more.
On that occasion, Eddy Suratman also explained that the Governor of West Kalimantan, Sutarmidji, has currently prioritized development starting from village administration to higher level government. This priority is to encourage acceleration at the provincial level to develop and advance the village with the existing potential.
He mentioned that this has been stated in the governor’s regulation, which then at the same time the budget has also been allocated. In fact, this development goal is the result of the coordination of all stakeholders in the village, regency to provincial governments.
The governor’s regulation that Eddy meant was stated in Pergub No.1 / 2019 which regulates the acceleration of improving the village progress and independence status.
At the end of the activity, Heru Supihartanto, who led the release process, emphasized that IDB can be used to see the shortcomings in the village. In this way, the development solution can possibly emerge from the survey results.
“From the existing indicators, we can see the shortcomings. Then what we can do to get to Independent Villages can be started from this IDB data, “he said.
Not only that, he also hopes that the government movement can synergize with his party, especially to get to independent villages.
“That is because, IDB released this data by seeing that the numbers of villages with developing and underdeveloped categories that still need to be encouraged together. We really hope that this IDB will become a reference for the government to encourage underdeveloped villages to become independent villages, “he concluded.