Kemendes Targets Next Year All Indonesian Villages Transform To Digital Villages

Head of the Village Development and Information Agency (BPI), Disadvantaged Region, and Transmigration of the Ministry of Villages PDT Ivanovich Agusta during the Workshop Exit Strategy of Smart Villages in Bandung, West Java, Saturday (30/11/2024). (Doc. ANTARA)

BANDUNG - The Ministry of Villages and Development of Disadvantaged Regions (Kemendes PDT) targets all villages in Indonesia, totaling 75,265 villages, to be transformed into digital villages.

"So, next year's target (2025) is 75,265 villages that rely on their APBDes for digital villages," said Head of the Village Development and Information Agency (BPI), Disadvantaged Region, and Transmigration of the Ministry of Villages PDT Ivanovich Agusta when closing the Workshop Exit Strategy for Smart Villages in Bandung, West Java, Saturday.

The target set is also in line with the mandate of Law Number 62 of 2024 concerning the 2025 State Budget which regulates that the use of village funds, among which is prioritized for the use of information technology in accelerating the existence of Digital Villages. Digital Village is the same nomenclature as Smart Villages, in accordance with the Decree of the Minister of Villages Number 55 of 2024.

Furthermore, the man who is familiarly called Ivan said that the agenda for realizing digitalization was actually not new in Indonesia. He said the government's mission to realize digitalization, especially in villages, had existed from the era of the government of the Seventh President of the Republic of Indonesia, President Joko Widodo (Jokowi).

"Actually, in the era of President Jokowi, digitalization in the village was already his priority and many times this has emerged in the priority of using village funds," said Ivan.

Even so, Ivan said the implementation of efforts to realize digitalization in villages by presenting Digital Villages has not been carried out optimally. In the last three years, he said, there have only been around 14,000 villages that use their village funds for the digitization program.

"So far, we have to admit that we have not been well guarded. Yesterday, we checked the last three years, villages that used village funds for digitization, the number was never more than 14,000. So it was very small," he said.

Thus, Ivan hopes that by 2025, all villages in Indonesia can really use their village funds to utilize information technology in accelerating the existence of Digital Villages or currently known as Smart Villages.

Intelligent villages are development and empowerment approaches in villages with the use of technology in various lines of life of rural communities. The Smart Village Program aims to improve the quality of basic services and development of inclusive and sustainable community empowerment-based villages through the effective increase of human resources in the use of technology.

During the 2020-2024 period or the running period of the Smart Village Program, Ivan said there were 3,000 villages that grew as Smart Villages. He hopes that the "exit strategy" produced in the workshop will be able to ensure that the 3,000 Smart Villages are able to contribute to accelerating digitalization in Indonesia.