Capacity of Rural Institutions in Implementing Decentralized Development in Indonesia : Case of Three Villages in Purbalingga District, Central Java Province <Article>

The implementation of decentralized system in 2001 has transferred the tasks to plan, execute and evaluate rural development to village government. Nevertheless, to be successful, decentralized system requires sufficient local capacity to implement these newly transferred tasks. This study aims to analyze the capacity of rural institutions, the realization of capacity to address livelihood problems and the effort of capacity development done by the government. It focuses on the four rural governmental institutions, namely village officers, neighborhood group, village parliament and village development committee. Case study was conducted in Serang, Kedarpan and Sumilir villages in Purbalingga District. Data were collected through questionnaires, interviews, observations and documentary studies. Totally 232 respondents were selected to provide perception on a set of capacity indicators of rural institutions. Among four levels of capacity set in this study, namely poor, slightly poor, good enough and good, this study finds that majority of the indicators fall under category of good enough. However, the realization of the capacity remains limited, and therefore only partial solution can be made to address local problems. Moreover, district government is so far emphasizing on capacity development for village officers, while neighborhood group, village parliament and village development committee were given less attention. Therefore, this study recommends the district government to conduct such effort of capacity development for neighborhood group, village parliament and village development committee.