{
    "success": true,
    "data": {
        "id": 1878325,
        "msgid": "prabowo-is-not-building-a-programme-but-a-system-1784854278",
        "date": "2026-07-24 07:11:54",
        "title": "Prabowo Is Not Building a Programme, but a System?",
        "author": "Retizen",
        "source": "REPUBLIKA",
        "tags": "",
        "topic": "Politics",
        "summary": "The article argues that President Prabowo's policies, such as the Free Nutritious Meal programme, Merah Putih Village Cooperatives, and Sekolah Garuda, should not be viewed in isolation. It suggests these initiatives might be components of a larger, interconnected national development ecosystem. The piece calls for public discourse to shift from debating individual programmes to scrutinising whether these policies form a coherent, productive system with strong governance.",
        "content": "<p>Many people are still busy debating government programmes one by one.\nThey view the Free Nutritious Meal (MBG) programme merely as a lunch\nscheme. They see the Merah Putih Village Cooperatives solely as a\ncooperative project. They consider Sekolah Garuda just another new\nschool. They question the establishment of the University of the\nRepublic of Indonesia (URI) as merely an additional educational\ninstitution. Even budget efficiency is narrowly perceived as just\nspending cuts. This way of reading the situation is too narrow. In\ndevelopment economics, a country does not change because of a single\nprogramme. A country changes when various policies begin to support one\nanother and form an ecosystem. Therefore, an economist does not only\nask, \u2018What is the goal of this programme?\u2019 but also, \u2018How does this\nprogramme relate to the others?\u2019 Try to see it as a series. Budget\nefficiency creates fiscal space. Fiscal space allows the government to\nshift resources to new priorities. MBG creates demand on a national\nscale. The Merah Putih Village Cooperatives can become nodes for\ndistribution and strengthening the local economy. Sekolah Garuda is an\ninvestment in human capital. URI is projected to build leadership\ncapacity. If all of these truly run in mutual support, then what is\nbeing built is not just a collection of programmes, but a development\necosystem. Is this reading certainly correct? Not necessarily. But\nignoring the possibility of interconnectedness between policies is also\nan analytical error. History shows that countries which have\nsuccessfully made developmental leaps rarely relied on a single policy.\nJapan, South Korea, Singapore, and China connected industrial policy,\neducation, institutional development, and human resource development in\na long-term strategy. Indonesia certainly has a different context, but\nthe main lesson remains the same: development requires mutually\nreinforcing institutions. Therefore, public debate should move up a\nclass. Do not just ask whether a programme is liked or disliked. Also\nask whether these programmes have an interconnected design. Is a chain\ntruly being created from the village, to production, to distribution, to\neducation, to leadership? Or is each one running alone without\ncoordination? These questions are far more important than just debating\non social media. However, one thing must not be forgotten. A good\necosystem on paper does not necessarily succeed in reality. Without\ntransparent governance, merit-based selection, strong oversight, and\nevidence-based evaluation, an ecosystem can turn into just a collection\nof budget-draining projects. That is why the public must not merely be\nsupporters or opponents. The public must be supervisors. If a system is\ntruly being built, then that system must produce productivity, welfare,\nand stronger institutions, not just grand narratives. Perhaps this is\nwhat many have not yet realised. We are too busy looking at the pieces\nof the puzzle, so we forget to ask whether these pieces are being\nassembled into a complete picture. If that is the case, then history\nwill not remember MBG, the Merah Putih Village Cooperatives, Sekolah\nGaruda, or URI as standalone programmes. History will judge them by one\nmuch larger question: did all of this succeed in becoming a system that\nstrengthened Indonesia, or was it just a collection of policies that\nwere never truly connected?<\/p>",
        "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/prabowo-is-not-building-a-programme-but-a-system-1784854278",
        "image": ""
    },
    "sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
    "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com"
}