Capitalize Local Resources with the OVOP Model: Concepts and praxis and beyond

Abstract

The article discusses how to use the Village Funds as a trigger for productive economic activities in rural areas in Indonesia. From the perspective of the collaboration concept, it takes the active role of various parties to work on this project . One model of village economic development is the OVOP (One Village One Product) model. The OVOP model has been successfully developed in Japan, then in Thailand and other countries. Conceptually, this model is to strategy for optimize all resources in a village or sub-district area. The role of the stakeholders greatly determines the success or failure of this model, including the role of the government and the private sector, in addition to the villagers themselves. It is assumed, Village Funds and local resource potential can be capitalized as initial capital to develop village featured products through the OVOP model that is synergized with the development of BUMDes (Village-Owned Enterprises). This has been empirically witnessed in several villages that have successfully used village funds to develop village potential. But in general, the synergy is apparently still faced with various obstacles that make it difficult to realize the target of rural economic development programs. The analysis in this article helps expand our perspective on the implications of a policy that only oriented on output, but not paying attention to outcomes. The results of this analysis have implications for building future village development policies, and for understanding the differential impact of different resource potentials which tends to be different in each village in Indonesia. Keywords—BUMDes; collaboration concept; OVOP model; village featured products; village funds