Empowering Human Resources to Accelerate MDG’s Objectives Based on Participatory Rural Appraisal

Abstract

The study aims to analyze the implementation of poverty alleviation through the optimization of human resource development for community empowerment by using participatory rural appraisal (PRA). The analysis was performed by descriptive quantitative questionnaire distributed to respondents. Respondents in the study were members of community self-reliance institutions (MFIs) as many as 179 people. It is expected that the results obtained would be able to generate a poverty alleviation method based on the problems and potential of the region. The questionnaire in this study was used to explore the perception of the public participation in the achievement of MDG's objective in their region. The results showed that the community empowerment in poverty alleviation was done optimally; the PRA method applied has helped the community to learn more and to be empowered. Nevertheless, many poverty alleviation activities take the form of charity, so it is difficult to examine the sustainability of the program. Based on data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), MDG's has been successful, yet in quality, it still needs to be improved, especially in terms of public health, MDG's objectives number 4, 5 and 6. According to the perceptions of the respondents, there are still no legal instruments to preserve the environment.

Keywords: Participatory Rural Appraisal, MDG's, Empowerment, Indonesia