by Endah Bayu Purnawati
In the three years since the implementation Law No 6/2014 on Village, there is yet to be a single national reference for measuring the development of Indonesia’s more than 74,000 villages. Bappenas is using a ‘Village Development Index’ (Indeks Pembangunan Desa, IPD) that categorises villages into less developed, developing, and developed. The Ministry of Villages, Disadvantaged Regions and Transmigration is using a ‘Building Villages Index’ (Indeks Desa Membangun, IDM) that divides villages into five categories. The Ministry of Home Affairs uses its ‘Village Development Evaluation’ (Evaluasi Perkembangan Desa or Epdeskel) to monitor villages and administrative villages. There are others as well.
With these various measuring tools to monitor villages, communities and village governments are overwhelmed with surveys and data requests from the national government, while the lack of a single unified reference for villages also hinders joint efforts to achieve the national targets of development, as mandated in the National Mid-term Development Plan (RPJMN).
Against this background, Bappenas and the coordinating Ministry for Human Development and Culture (Kemenko PMK) are leading the processes to coordinate the synchronisation and harmonisation of existing village-related indexes. A technical Echelon Two meeting for harmonisation of these indexes was held on 17 March 2017 in Jakarta. Representatives from Bappenas, Kemendesa, Kemendagri, Kemenko PMK and the National Bureau of Statistics (BPS) agreed to have a unified and harmonised village index to assist all relevant stakeholders at the national and sub-national level to better monitor the progress of village development as mandated in the RPJMN and Village Law. In April this will be followed up by an Echelon One meeting aiming for a regulation to unify the indexes.
