In commemoration of the 2nd anniversary of Law Number 6 of 2014 concerning Villages, the Institute for Research and Empowermentire (IRE) held a Two-Year Reflection Seminar on the Village Law. The seminar was held at the Giriloyo Batik Gazebo, Wukirsari Village, Imogiri, Bantul, on Monday, December 21, 2015. SurveyMETER presented as a participant on this occasion. SurveyMETER and IRE are members of the Knowledge Sector Initiative (KSI).

The seminar theme was village management. Maneges Desa means reinforcing the village. It can also mean reinterpreting by doing self-reflection. From this seminar, participants are expected to reflect on the progress of implementing the Village Law, namely to strengthen the existence of the village as regulated in the law.

Acting as the keynote speaker was Drs. H. Akhmad Muqowam (Chairman of Committee I DPD-RI). The speakers were Prof. Achmad Erani Yustika, M.Sc, Ph.D. (Directorate General of Village Community Development and Empowerment of the Ministry of Villages, PDT, and Transmigration), Dr. Tugiman from the Ministry of Human Empowerment and Culture, and Dr. Arie Sujito (IRE Researcher). Meanwhile, the moderator was Dr. Abdur Rozaki (IRE Researcher). Participants consisted of village heads, village representative assembly (BPD), village MSMEs, local governments, district representative assembly (DPRD), NGOs, and academics.

The ceremonial event commenced with remarks from Wukirsari village representatives later followed by Sunaji Zamroni as the chairman of the committee. Continued later with the launching of village assistance Instruments, then launching off the trial results of institutionalizing villages democratization and authority. In this session, the IRE and the CCES research teams introduced several materials including modules, applications of Desakita, village council videos, photos, and infographics. Three applications that have been successfully developed by the Center for Civic Engagement and Studies (CCES) can be downloaded on the google app and used offline including our village site in www.desakita.id, village learning in www.learning.desakita.id and building villages in www.bangun.desakita.id

Stepping on the presentation session, Drs. H. Akhmad Muqowam as the legislator when the Village Law was drafted, invited all participants to reflect back on institutions at the central level. The law mandates that the ministry responsible for implementing the Village Law is one ministry. But now, in reality, the authority at the central level is divided into the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry of Villages, PDT and Transmigration, the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of Human Empowerment and Culture. This causes difficulties in coordinating the implementation of the Village Law. This is thought to be one of the reasons for the lack of success in implementing the Village Law in this first year.

Furthermore, the three seminar speakers invited participants to reflect on some of the existing shortcomings and then jointly look for the right improvement solution. Albeit the Village Law implementation in the first year still had many deficiencies such as lack of coordination, delays in disbursing funds, lack of assistance, and lack of administrative reporting, but all felt confident the utilization of it would be better in the following year. It was expected all village officials would not only focus on the existing funds since they would certainly continue to exist and would always increase as long as it had not been revised. In the future, the village government should focus more on the other mandates of the village law, especially in terms of fighting for village authorities such as the authority of origin and the authority to manage existing natural resources.

SurveyMETER intrinsically can take on a role to contribute to overseeing the implementation of the Village Law. The steps included analyzing and using big data by downloading from all available platforms.