The achievement of the “success” of the village fund program implemented by the central government from 2015-2019 needs to be examined again. Based on statistical data released by the National Statistics Agency (BPS), the poverty rate from year to year shows a declining trend. However, if the downward trend is examined more deeply, the reversal of the downward trend turns out to be accompanied by a trend in the level of worsening poverty which is also creeping up each year. This means that inequality in the social structure of society between “lower and upper” social classes is getting worse.
Issue Bulletin 1 (8), published by IGPA MAP UGM, shows the contribution of Village Fund and BUM Desa policies which actually triggers the imbalance of villages. The author uses two national pilot villages that have succeeded in gaining revenue reaching billions of rupiah each year as a case study. Behind the reality of the two pilot villages, the writer succeeded in describing the unequal social gradations between the social reproduction of the village elite and the laborers in the village. Instead of odd workers being empowered and welfare through village funds, this paper found something to the contrary.