Village-Owned Enterprises (BUM Desa) Management Strategy Towards Sustainable Village Development

Abstract. The amount of village funds distributed by the government to villages should be accompanied by an excellent performance of the empowerment programme and the improvement of the village economy through Village-Owned Enterprises (BUM Desa). However, many BUM Desa have stopped operating. This study aims to explore the causes of BUM Desa's poor performance using ethnographic research strategy. The results of this study revealed that the cause of BUM Desa's poor performance is that the community prefers BUM Desa that have physical buildings rather than implementing community empowerment-based businesses through modern cultivation and agriculture. In addition, many villages require higher capacity to formulate a vision for sustainable development. Both factors occur due to the low education level of village heads and communities. The weak performance of BUM Desa is exacerbated by the community culture that considers a person's height not based on capacity but age. In many villages, elders are often more dominant in making proposals than the village head, leading to a lack of focus on the direction of village development. BUM Desa performance is currently at the stage of fulfilling fiscal and social accountability but needs to be more effective in delivering empowerment benefits.