New Holistic Strategy of Sustainable Rural Development Management-Experience from Indonesia: A PESTEL-SOAR Analysis

Abstract

This article offers a new strategy of holistic rural development by utilizing the external strengths of the rural and the internal strength based on the experience of one of the rural in Indonesia that has been succeeded in turning the rural from the poorest into the best in the national rank. The successful formula is associated with the role of village leaders in benefiting opportunities from the existing external-internal aspects. To capture more holistic development phenomena including political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal phenomena while generating new bottom-up strategies, the study uses PESTEL and SOAR analysis. This study found that the first condition for rural development in Indonesia is the development of village leadership management strength in holistically managing the potential and opportunities of external and internal villages. It changes the fundamental paradigm that holistic rural development must be seen as a whole (the village can take advantage of the existing external-internal strengths) partially (the village only focuses on utilizing the village's internal strength utilization agricultural potential). Through the PESTELs-SOAR analysis approach, the strategy offered becomes more rational and comprehensive in sustainable rural development by collaborating the village bottom-up strategy approach while still considering prevailing external conditions (more top-down).