By: Wahyu Gunawan )*
Amid the urgent need to strengthen the foundations of the rural economy while ensuring that national growth is truly felt at the grassroots level, the government has taken a strategic step by directing the 2026 Village Funds to support the development of Red-and-White Village Cooperatives (Koperasi Desa Merah Putih). This flagship program of President Prabowo Subianto’s administration is believed to have the potential to become a new engine of prosperity for rural communities.
Through the Ministry of Villages and Development of Disadvantaged Regions, the government has emphasized that the policy direction of the 2026 Village Funds will no longer be general and unfocused, but instead concentrated on strengthening concrete and measurable people-centered economic institutions. Minister of Villages and Development of Disadvantaged Regions Yandri Susanto explained that one of the main priorities for the use of Village Funds in the 2026 fiscal year is to support the implementation and strengthening of Red-and-White Village Cooperatives, which have become the backbone of President Prabowo Subianto’s rural economic policy.
According to Yandri Susanto, this policy is not merely a discourse, but has been legally binding through Ministerial Regulation Number 16 of 2025 on Operational Guidelines for the Focus of Village Fund Utilization in Fiscal Year 2026, which was enacted on December 29, 2025. As a result, all villages across Indonesia now have a clear reference that must be implemented.
In a limited coordination meeting on the implementation of the Red-and-White Village Cooperative program at the Office of the Coordinating Ministry for Food Affairs in Jakarta, Yandri Susanto stressed that there is no room for village officials or village communities to take a half-hearted stance, let alone reject the program.
He assessed that Red-and-White Village Cooperatives are a crucial instrument seriously designed by President Prabowo Subianto’s administration to improve the living standards of rural communities through a modern, transparent, and competitive system of mutual cooperation. Without full support from all parties—from village officials to local residents—the grand objective of improving welfare starting from villages would be difficult to achieve and could be hindered by sectoral egos or unfounded local resistance.
An optimistic tone was also conveyed by the Coordinating Ministry for Food Affairs. Coordinating Minister for Food Affairs Zulkifli Hasan revealed that the government continues to update data related to the progress of Red-and-White Village Cooperative development throughout Indonesia. Based on the latest data, approximately 40,000 Red-and-White Village Cooperatives are ready to enter the physical construction phase, while another 26,000 are already in the process of being built in various regions.
Zulkifli Hasan emphasized that accelerating the construction of Red-and-White Village Cooperative outlets is a priority so that these cooperatives do not exist merely on paper, but can soon operate and serve the economic needs of rural communities. To realize this, the government has assigned Agrinas Pangan to work together with the Indonesian National Armed Forces (TNI) in the regions as construction implementers—an कदम that demonstrates the state’s seriousness in overseeing this program down to the lowest levels.
On the other hand, the Ministry of Cooperatives and SMEs is also moving aggressively. Minister of Cooperatives Ferry Juliantono stated that the government is targeting the construction of 80,000 physical outlets of Red-and-White Village and Urban Village Cooperatives as the main infrastructure driving the local economy. Based on mapping efforts, more than 44,000 land points have been identified as potential locations for outlet construction, and to date more than 13,000 locations have been successfully built.
Ferry Juliantono emphasized that this acceleration will continue to be intensified by involving cross-ministerial and inter-agency collaboration, including the Ministry of Agrarian Affairs, the State-Owned Enterprises Regulatory Agency, and the Ministry of Home Affairs, so that all aspects of licensing, financing, and governance can be aligned within a short time frame.
Data presented in the Ministry of Cooperatives’ command center information system illustrates the vast scale of this movement. More than 83,000 Red-and-White Village Cooperatives have obtained legal entity status, with membership reaching 1.65 million people and approximately 690,000 administrators. These figures show that village cooperatives are no longer small-scale projects, but rather a national movement involving millions of rural residents within a coordinated economic network.
Ferry Juliantono also expressed confidence that as many as 26,000 physical Red-and-White Village Cooperative outlets will be successfully built no later than April 2026, in line with the intensified human resource training and the continuous refinement of cooperative digitalization systems being carried out by the Ministry of Cooperatives.
Furthermore, the government is not only constructing buildings and organizational structures, but is also preparing a modern business ecosystem. Through cross-ministerial and inter-agency synergy, Red-and-White Village Cooperatives are being directed to play a role in strengthening food self-sufficiency by developing businesses from upstream to downstream, utilizing Red-and-White Village and Urban Village Cooperative hubs as distribution centers, and applying Internet of Things–based technology to make cooperative operations more efficient, transparent, and sustainable. With this approach, added value is expected to no longer leak to intermediaries, but instead return to farmers, cooperatives, and rural communities as the main actors.
Ultimately, the policy of directing the 2026 Village Funds toward strengthening Red-and-White Village Cooperatives can be seen as a large-scale consolidation of the rural economy. The state is no longer merely distributing funds, but is also ensuring that those funds function through institutions capable of sustainably driving economic activity.
With all the policy instruments, data, and infrastructure that have been prepared, the new direction of the 2026 Village Funds to strengthen Red-and-White Village Cooperatives should serve as a momentum for all village officials and communities to unite in seizing this opportunity. Only through active participation and collective oversight can village cooperatives become locomotives of a fair, independent, and sustainable economy for Indonesia—starting from its villages.
*) The author is a Researcher in Economics and Development – Indonesian Prosperous Economy Forum