Synergy Of The Ministry Of Cooperatives And The Dekranas For Increasing Digital Financial Literacy For Actors In The Crafts And Disabilities MSMEs

Photo: Special

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Cooperatives and SMEs (KemenkopUKM) is collaborating with the National Crafts Council (Dekranas) for Funding and supported by collaborators, namely the Cooperative, Small and Medium Enterprises Gulling Fund Management Agency (LPDB-KUMKM), the KUKM Marketing Service Institute (Smesco Indonesia), the Indonesian Tough Women's Foundation (PTI), WhatsApp Indonesia, and Indonesian SMEs held a synergy of activities that carried the theme < Ceriya” in Bali, Thursday 8 September. The selection of Bali as the center of the activity is a form of government support in an effort to make the Island of the Gods recover faster and rise stronger. As is known, Bali, which controls the tourism sector, was hit by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, so far Bali tourism has contributed greatly to the national economy and contributed a lot of foreign exchange for the country. Minister of Cooperatives and SMEs Teten Masduki said the synergy activities of the Ministry of Cooperatives and the Funding Division of Dekranas on September 8, 2022 in Bali encourage the Indonesian Crafts MSME ecosystem to become more empowered and independent in line with the strengthening of the digital economy. This program, he continued, is a gateway for cross-sectoral collaboration. This collaboration provides opportunities for local MSMEs to be able to accelerate the potential in order to be onboarded to digital. "Speaking of financial literacy and the digital economy, of course it is very complete by utilizing digital technology aspects related to MSME business processes and cooperatives. MSMEs of Indonesian Crafts will be more empowered and independent if they enter and go digital. For this reason, many digital innovators are needed," said Teten in a written statement. The current use of the digital economy is a concern for the development of the Indonesian Crafts MSME business process and cooperatives. The digitization created by innovators has proven to change millions of MSME actors to be more empowered and strong despite the COVID-19 pandemic. Digital onboarding is indeed important for Indonesian Crafts MSME players. That's because digital onboarding can be a solution to banking matters that are quite time-consuming. Onboarding makes online marketing easier because it can be done only from the palm of your hand. Chairman of the Central Dekranas Wury Ma'ruf Amin said, along with the theme of this year's program "Kriya Story", his party focused on strengthening the craft sub-sector ecosystem from upstream to downstream. It started from the production process, financing, marketing, to institutions such as cooperatives. And most importantly, he said, digital transformation for business actors. "We also cooperate with friends with disabilities who have worked a lot in the Craft sector to be able to continue to develop and find their market through the "Kriya Story" program," he explained. Wury said, in 2022, Dekranas with support from the Ministry of Cooperatives and SMEs, trains more than 500 government facilitators/trainers with a target of more than 900 thousand MSMEs. "Those who then train SMEs to get exports are like the SMEs who graduated from this training," he added. The Dekranas and KemenKopUKM collaboration has been running since 2019. However, in 2020, both parties agreed to redesign this activity to become more sustainable and with an approach to strengthening the ecosystem for business actors. "From 2020 to 2021, we will focus on strengthening Indonesian Astra, in accordance with the focus of Dekranas' work, with the title "Wastra Story"," he said. The general chairman of the PTI Myra Winarko Foundation said that the opportunity provided by the KemenkopUMKM and Dekranas was able to open opportunities for 31 million people with disabilities in Indonesia. To note, the PTI Foundation is a business incubator for the disabled. That is why the Ministry of Cooperatives and the Dekranas collaborated with PTI in order to continue ongoing steps to support Sustainable Development (Digital Economy to Support SDGs"). "God willing, we will answer the Minister's challenge regarding the digitalization ecosystem for people with disabilities from upstream to downstream," said Myra. So far, PTI has carried out its function by fostering various disability communities in various parts of Indonesia. Among them are a community of mental rehabilitation in West Java which produces Asin eggs. Then, Make Up Artist training for mute and deaf, painting training, and cooking training. On average, these PTI Training graduates are independent, some of whom have been able to enter the job market as professional workers. PTI as a business incubator also cooperates with several large companies and banks, to continue to carry out digital development and marketing. "In the future, we even plan to create our own platform, in addition to providing training on disabilities to enter the digital world independently," said Myra.