Prabowo Is Not Building a Programme, but a System?

Many people are still busy debating government programmes one by one. They view the Free Nutritious Meal (MBG) programme merely as a lunch scheme. They see the Merah Putih Village Cooperatives solely as a cooperative project. They consider Sekolah Garuda just another new school. They question the establishment of the University of the Republic of Indonesia (URI) as merely an additional educational institution. Even budget efficiency is narrowly perceived as just spending cuts. This way of reading the situation is too narrow. In development economics, a country does not change because of a single programme. A country changes when various policies begin to support one another and form an ecosystem. Therefore, an economist does not only ask, ‘What is the goal of this programme?’ but also, ‘How does this programme relate to the others?’ Try to see it as a series. Budget efficiency creates fiscal space. Fiscal space allows the government to shift resources to new priorities. MBG creates demand on a national scale. The Merah Putih Village Cooperatives can become nodes for distribution and strengthening the local economy. Sekolah Garuda is an investment in human capital. URI is projected to build leadership capacity. If all of these truly run in mutual support, then what is being built is not just a collection of programmes, but a development ecosystem. Is this reading certainly correct? Not necessarily. But ignoring the possibility of interconnectedness between policies is also an analytical error. History shows that countries which have successfully made developmental leaps rarely relied on a single policy. Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and China connected industrial policy, education, institutional development, and human resource development in a long-term strategy. Indonesia certainly has a different context, but the main lesson remains the same: development requires mutually reinforcing institutions. Therefore, public debate should move up a class. Do not just ask whether a programme is liked or disliked. Also ask whether these programmes have an interconnected design. Is a chain truly being created from the village, to production, to distribution, to education, to leadership? Or is each one running alone without coordination? These questions are far more important than just debating on social media. However, one thing must not be forgotten. A good ecosystem on paper does not necessarily succeed in reality. Without transparent governance, merit-based selection, strong oversight, and evidence-based evaluation, an ecosystem can turn into just a collection of budget-draining projects. That is why the public must not merely be supporters or opponents. The public must be supervisors. If a system is truly being built, then that system must produce productivity, welfare, and stronger institutions, not just grand narratives. Perhaps this is what many have not yet realised. We are too busy looking at the pieces of the puzzle, so we forget to ask whether these pieces are being assembled into a complete picture. If that is the case, then history will not remember MBG, the Merah Putih Village Cooperatives, Sekolah Garuda, or URI as standalone programmes. History will judge them by one much larger question: did all of this succeed in becoming a system that strengthened Indonesia, or was it just a collection of policies that were never truly connected?