Vice President Ma'ruf Amin Expects Corporate CSR To Look At BUMDes Development

JAKARTA - Vice President (Wapres) Ma'ruf Amin hopes that the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program will help develop Village-Owned Enterprises (BUMDes) so that they play a role in encouraging economic empowerment of rural communities.

"Corporate CSR aimed at fostering BUMDes is expected to encourage efforts to empower rural communities, which in turn can create a strong, developing, and just national economic structure," said the Vice President at the BUMN/Private CSR Program award ceremony and the Promotion of Nusantara Tourism Villages in Jakarta, quoted from Antara, Thursday, June 23.

The Vice President appreciated the idea of the Ministry of Villages, Development of Disadvantaged Regions, and Transmigration (Kemendes PDTT) together with the Indonesia Social Sustainability Forum (ISSF) to award CSR programs for BUMN and private companies.

The award is expected to foster motivation for BUMN or private companies to continue to support the development of BUMDes through CSR programs.

The Vice President emphasized that village development is the center of Indonesia's future development stakes. According to him, if the village is strong and independent, the dream of Advanced Indonesia will be more easily realized.

The vice president also hopes that the support for the development of BUMDes can optimize local potential through its business fields, thereby providing benefits for village communities.

Until 2021, he continued, there are still 23.24 percent of villages that fall into the category of underdeveloped and very underdeveloped based on data from the Building Village Index (IDM). Therefore, he asked the Kemendes PDTT to work hard so that by 2024 there will be no more underdeveloped and very underdeveloped villages.

The government also continues to strive to empower the rural economy, one of which is through tourism village development programs, including halal tourism villages, which is a form of inclusive community-based tourism, through a community empowerment approach, both empowering human resources and SMEs.

The number of tourist villages that have been recorded so far is 7,275 tourist villages, based on sources from the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy in 2021.

One of the things that need to be encouraged for the development of tourist villages is the awareness of stakeholders to promote the attractiveness of tourist villages as favorite destinations that attract domestic and foreign tourists.