IDF 2019: From Ngadiprono Village to Jailolo, Developing Talent Creativity and the Local IDF Market

Monitta Putri Lisa Mary at Accelerating Structural Transformation session

Who would have thought that a bamboo grove of garbage dumps in the village could become a creative tourist location? That's what Singgih Kartono did together with the Spedagi Community. Carrying the Papringan Market, Spedagi encouraged Ngadiprono villagers to recognize the potential of the village to develop a sustainable economy with the concept of a traditional market in the area of bamboo gardens.

Hundreds of families are actively involved in Papringan Market to develop bamboo-based products. Aside from farming and gardening, they now sell, manage parking, rent out homestays, and so on to earn extra income.

Singgih Kartono shared best practices of the Spedagi Community in the Imagine Session entitled "Developing Local Talent and Local Market" at Indonesia Development Forum (IDF) 2019 on 22-23 July 2019. IDF 2019 with the main theme "Mission Possible: Seizing the Opportunities of Future Work to Drive Inclusive Growth”, discussing Sub-theme 7 Developing Local Talent and Local Markets as one focus of discussion.

The development of local talent and markets is in line with the direction and mandate of the President of the Republic of Indonesia, Joko Widodo to explore and encourage the utilisation of regional superior potentials which will ultimately have a positive impact on the national economy. That is why, currently the development of regional potential is one of the focuses of the Government's development to boost productivity and economic capacity of the region.

In its press release, Bappenas mentioned the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) 2018 data shows that one in four young Indonesians are aged 16 to 30 years. However, more than half of the youth are concentrated in Java as much as 55.53 percent on the grounds of pursuing better quality education and wider employment opportunities. To overcome this, collaboration between urban and rural areas is one of the keys to equity.

The founder of Spedagi, Singgih Kartono emphasised the important role of collaboration of various parties.

"The government cannot work alone, the community will have to take a very strong role. Therefore, I made this bamboo bicycle as a creative movement for village revitalization because the village is actually the coolest community and I believe that the village is the future," he explained. 

Gita Syahrini, Executive Director of Knowledge Center, Lingkar Temu Kabupaten Lestari (Sustainable District Platform) in the Ideas and Innovations Marketplace Session - Capturing and Sharing Knowledge also supports collaborative steps that need to be formulated.

"Collaboration and creativity encourage local governments to improve their regional competitiveness. Lingkar Temu suggested that the local government should make a report as ammunition to work with other stakeholders," said Gita.

Singgih also said it was necessary to mobilize external resources to hamlets to help the local community and other stakeholders, so that the collaboration was created for village conservation.

"Local must mean ‘open and connected’. This is a concept used by Spedagi which refers to combining city and rural areas to prove that villages are also able to move and innovate," added Singgih.

Regional Creativity to Manage Local Resources

Best practices in developing other regional potentials come from one of the sectors that is considered to be the most promising today, namely tourism. The tourism sector that develops in an area that directly and indirectly provides new employment opportunities for the local community.

To develop tourism, physical infrastructure and social infrastructure need to be developed. Communities need to be strengthened to get prepared for the tourism project and trigger a multiplier effect on other sectors.

"The socio-cultural values started to be abandoned, mutual cooperation left behind. This is a problem," said Pujon Kidul Village Head, Malang Regency, Udi Hartoko who shared the best practices of his village government in mobilizing its citizens for local village tourism.

Udi then mobilized all elements in his village, starting with the LPAD group, the farmer group, the livestock group, the PKK (women’s group_, the Tourism Awareness Group to jointly manage the potential in the village.

"Our principle, the community is the owner, actor, and rejecters. All of them are village people," he added.

Community should be developed for the best interest of future generations.

“They probably constituted a problem in society in the past, but now they are pioneers to solve those problems that exist in society. Previously, they were underestimated, now they are social movers," he continued.

The development of regional potential through local tourism was also explained by Monitta Putri Lisa Mary, one of the winners of the IDF 2019 Call for Submission, using the ecotourism case study of Banyuwangi Regency.

"Local governments can be a regulator between leakage and linkage, where local governments are able to manage through regulation," Monitta said.

According to Monitta, factors that can filter out the local workforce from tourism are ownership by local communities, the ability to connect between local industries and tourism, as well as stimulus to tourism sector through festivals and events.

"By prioritizing tourism, we should prioritize society so that the economy can trickle down and provide welfare for the community," Monitta continued.

In the Ideas and Innovation Marketplace Session, Co-creating and Collaborating, Petra Karetji, Plakarika Founder of Creative Hub said that he was working on developing local talent in Halmahera, Maluku. According to Petra, there are still a lot of work to do outside Java, including in Halmahera.

“Plakarika aims at creating creative space for local communities to encourage innovative interaction, departing from the natural and cultural forces of Jailolo," he said. 

The Jailolo culture called Petra has a motto, "Even though we have fallen, let's rise together".

Nika Pranata, an Economic Researcher from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences LIPI gave an example of a good practice from China. Speaking in the Imagine Session, Developing Globally Competitive Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Session, Nika said that China empowered local traders by involving the local government.

"Creating a program called ‘Taobao Village’ in collaboration with Alibaba, so that profits from sales increased and the welfare of local residents improved,“ she added. 

Taobao Village is a village associated with the Rural Taobao program of the giant e-commerce company in China, Alibaba Group.

IDF 2019 encouraged the development of regional potential by presenting local talents from various potentials at the event which took place last July 22-23. The aim includes among others to encourage  businesses and local governments to work together to develop local markets, so local businesses can be more competitive globally, and the skills and competencies needed to support local economic development can be built.