INDONESIA will benefit significantly from the economic transformation of villages, and society needs to be aware of its impact.
Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment, Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, said this according to reports in the Antara news agency.
He said this at the 2022 National Village Gathering (Silatnas) of the Indonesian Association of Village Administrations (Apdesi) here on Tuesday
"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," Luhut said.
He said there are at least two tasks that need to be undertaken by village administrations in the country, namely, the development of human resources and the transformation of the economy.
To bring about economic transformation in villages, it is essential to develop human resources, he said and urged village heads to take the lead in this.
Luhut also noted the level of education in villages needs to be improved to elevate 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, 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.
For that reason, village funds, which have been increasing since 2015, need to be utilised as well as possible for improving the villages' economy.