"Handling the economy in villages is the role of all of you who are present here. Villages are significant because if on a micro scale it is good, then nationally we will also be better," he said at the 2022 National Village Gathering (Silatnas) of the Indonesian Association of Village Administrations (Apdesi), according to a written statement issued here on Tuesday.
There are at least two important tasks that need to be undertaken by all village governments in the country, namely the development of village human resources and the transformation of the village economy, he added.
"In terms of research, we admit that we are still behind Malaysia or China, but that does not mean we cannot catch up," he said.
Indonesia must catch up with various innovations in local-made products such as those from universities, for example, isolation rooms, prototypes of N95 masks, BSL-2 mobile labs, as well as the works of SMEs (small and medium enterprises) or MSMEs (micro, small, and medium enterprises), he said.
To bring about economic transformation in villages, it is essential to develop human resources, he said. To this end, village heads must develop human resources in their villages so that they can increase the economic power of the villages, he added.
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He further said that the level of education in villages needs to be increased to improve the quality of human resources and village welfare. This is because the majority of the rural population, or more than 80 percent of its workforce, is engaged in the agricultural sector and has only graduated high school or junior high school.
For that reason, village funds, which have been increasing since 2015, need to be utilized as well as possible for improving the villages' economy.
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Translator: Ade Irma, Raka Adji
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
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