JABAR EKSPRES – The Ministry of Villages, Disadvantaged Regions, and Transmigration (Kemendes PDTT) has centered the first meeting of the ASEAN Village Network in the Special Region of Yogyakarta.
“We center it in Yogyakarta with many considerations, because one of the villages that is the locus of the ASEAN Village Network is a tourist village,” said Minister of Villages Abdul Halim Iskandar after giving a speech at the ASEAN Collaborative Forum on Localizing 2030 SDGs at the Village Level in Yogyakarta, Tuesday (7/25).
Abdul Halim said the first meeting of the forum to establish a village network in ASEAN was a follow-up to the agreement of ASEAN leaders at the 42nd ASEAN Summit in Labuan Bajo, East Nusa Tenggara, in May.
Through the network initiated by Indonesia, he said, all ASEAN member countries that have villages, except Singapore, will synergize by building connectivity that leads to economic growth and human resource development.
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“We will focus on two things as ordered by the President (Joko Widodo), namely economic growth and human resource development,” he added.
He hopes villages in ASEAN can exchange experiences and develop innovative strategies and policies to answer the unique challenges faced by rural communities to the regional level.
Abdul Halim also believes that the first meeting of the ASEAN Village Network opens up new opportunities and creates synergies that will accelerate village development, especially in accelerating the economic leverage of villages.
“Getting to know each other, learning, exchanging experiences and success stories, that’s the point; because the principle of the easiest village development process is replication or ATM: observe, imitate, modify,” he said.
During the ASEAN Village Network event in Yogyakarta, a visit was made to Mangunan Village in Bantul Regency on Monday (24/7). In addition, a number of small meetings were also held in several tourist villages in Yogyakarta.
