POLICY ANALYSIS OF VILLAGE DEVELOPMENT TARGETING POVERTY REDUCTION IN PAPUA PROVINCE

Abstract

In Papua Province, poverty has become an important problem common in other regions in Indonesia and worldwide, especially in developing countries. The Millennium Development Goals targets have pushed the Indonesian government to emphasize poverty reduction programs throughout Indonesia. Rural areas in Papua, particularly villages, have been the target point for the poverty alleviation program because many in rural areas experience poverty that is worse than urban areas. Rural development is considered an effective method for poverty reduction. Meanwhile, the development program as a whole has neglected rural communities. In Papua Province, poverty reduction programs have been implemented ineffectively due to part of the village development program, the top-down approach of the government, and the absence of competent resources. So far, village development policies have been implemented without considering village potential, spatial arrangements, holistic approaches, and lack of budget allocations. In addition, the role of village government shows an ineffective performance. Thus, this study aspires to identify how much influence communication, resources, disposition, and bureaucratic structure have on poverty reduction in Papua Province. This study indicates that communication, resources, dispositions, and bureaucratic structures affect village development policies and influence poverty reduction in Papua Province. This research also shows that the lower the performance of the implementation of village development policies indicated by four variables, the less effective it is in poverty alleviation in Papua Province. In this study, a novelty that previous researchers have not found has been found, namely; that in the effectiveness of poverty reduction, it is necessary to develop an effective communication so that program implementation can run optimally, and it needs to be supported by the character or behavior of the implementers of the village development program.