UNAIR NEWS – Minister of Villages, Development of Disadvantaged Regions, and Transmigration Dr (HC) Drs A Halim Iskandar MPd visited Universitas Airlangga (UNAIR) on Thursday, July 14, 2022. He gave a lecture at the Inauguration of the Brilian Village Depeening Program 2022.

On that occasion, Drs Halim shared the SDGs localization strategies at the village level. Drs Halim said that the village economy is actually a pillar of economic justice for Indonesia. One of them is proven by the ups and downs of the national economic condition due to Covid-19.

“With only looking at the agricultural sector, value-added villages continued to grow by 1.77 percent when the national economy performed minus 2.07 percent in 2020,” he explained.

This growth and equity continue to show consistent progress since the era of Indonesia’s independence. From there, Drs Halim said it was logical for the government to direct the SDGs to the village level.

“The localization of the SDGs is so that the sustainable development goals are not limited to pillars 1 and 10,” he added.

Localization of SDGs to villages is considered important because 91 percent of the smallest government areas are villages and 71 percent of Indonesia’s population lives in rural areas.

Drs Halim also highlighted the efforts to build village SDGs’ basic data independence. The independence is carried out by mobilizing the villagers as the data collection agents.

“We will also encourage the role of BUMDes (Village Owned Enterprises, ed) as an important entity to realize a just village economy, especially on the 8th and 18th Village SDGs goals,” he explained.

Following the post-pandemic recovery, the Ministry of Villages, Development of Disadvantaged Regions, and Transmigration has formulated a post-pandemic village business model. The business model is based on pricing strategies, data sources, consumer interactions, and business unit partnership patterns.

“Finally, congratulations on passing the Brilian Village participants. Hopefully, it can be put into practice in the field soon and the villagers benefit from it,” said Drs Halim.

The event is part of the Brilian Village program, a collaboration between BRI and UNAIR. The event was also attended by the UNAIR Rector, Head of the Central BRI Social Entrepreneurship and Incubation Division, and Vice Governor of East Java. (*)

Author: Intang Arifia

Editor: Feri Fenoria