IMPACT OF VILLAGE FUNDS ON POVERTY AND HUMAN RESOURCES

    Developments and changes in government systems have occurred since the implementation of regional autonomy. Post reforms and regional autonomy, there have been many policy changes related to government budgets and spending that will be used to have an impact on economic growth, inequality, and poverty in rural areas. Post regional autonomy there are many government programs to empower people in rural areas. The programs provided are mostly managed and planned directly by the rural community. One form of the policy is village funds. The village fund is one of the government's nawacita commitments to develop Indonesia from the margins and deterioration.

    The Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Indonesia (2017) explains that village funds are APBN funds intended for villages that are transferred through the Regency / City APBD and prioritized for the implementation of development and community empowerment and have five objectives between improving public services in the village, alleviating poverty, promoting rural economy , addressing development disparities between villages and strengthening rural communities as the subject of development. Village funds are one form of government expenditure that is expected to have a positive impact on economic growth and poverty reduction. Government spending can have a tremendous impact on economic development. Barro (1990) explains that government spending that is productive or used for productive investment will have a positive impact on economic growth, while non-productive government spending such as employee salaries and others that are not intended for productive investment have no impact on economic growth. This means that if village funds can be used for productive programs or productive investment, this will have an impact on economic growth and poverty alleviation.

    This is very important to study related to poverty, because the amount of poverty in the village is greater than in urban areas. For this reason, community empowerment and poverty alleviation using village funds that produce the right programs will certainly have a big impact. For this reason, this research is very important. Villages face various forms and situations of poverty where villagers do not have jobs or find it difficult to find work, it is difficult to obtain health services or facilities, and they do not have economic assets, such as land (Palupi et al, 2016).

      In theory, the use of village funds will be able to increase productivity in rural areas which can reduce poverty. The use of village funds has been misplaced in its realization, which is mostly used for non-productive uses but rather for infrastructure projects such as the construction or improvement of public facilities such as repairing roads, places of worship and sports venues. The reason is because the understanding of human resources in rural areas in Indonesia is still very weak.