Speaking at the Merdeka Barat 9 Forum on Monday, he noted that the increase in the number of independent villages is a significant outcome of Village Fund disbursement since 2015, supported by Law Number 6 of 2014 concerning Villages.
Based on data from the Ministry of Finance, the government disbursed Rp609.68 trillion (US$38 billion) through the state budget for village economic development in the period from 2015 to 2024.
"Currently, the very underdeveloped and underdeveloped villages are in Papua, Papua Highland, South Papua, Central Papua, North Maluku, and East Nusa Tenggara," he informed.
Besides independent villages, the status of other villages has also improved in the last 10 years. The number of villages with advanced status was recorded at 23,063 in 2024, up from 3,608 in 2015.
Meanwhile, the number of developing villages increased to 24,532 in 2024 from 3,608 in 2015, Raharjo informed.
According to the deputy minister, the number of underdeveloped and very underdeveloped villages also declined to 6,100 in 2024 from 33,592 in 2015 and 4,363 in 2024 from 13,453 in 2015, respectively.
He said that this improvement has been supported by village facilities and infrastructure built by the government in the past nearly 10 years, especially village road infrastructure, which now stretches around 366 thousand kilometers.
In addition, many villages have started building village-owned enterprises (BUMDes), he noted.
On the same occasion, acting regional secretary of Malang district, Nurman Ramdansyah, expressed his gratitude for the government's support for his region.
He informed that the allocation of Village Funds for 378 villages in Malang district increased from Rp289 million (US$18 thousand) per village in 2015 to Rp967.79 million (US$60 thousand) per village in 2019.
The figure increased to Rp1 billion (US$62 thousand) per village in 2020 and Rp1.2 billion (US$75 thousand) per village this year.
"Malang district is also the only region that received a pilot project for microfinance institutions (LKM) in our BUMDes," he added.
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Translator: Rizka Khaerunnisa, Resinta Sulistiyandari
Editor: Azis Kurmala
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