President Prabowo Subianto is scheduled to inaugurate the Koperasi Desa/Kelurahan Merah Putih (Village/Urban Cooperative “Merah Putih”) on Monday, July 21, 2025, in Jakarta. This village cooperative initiative is a significant part of the President’s sixth Asta Cita (Visionary Aspiration), aimed at revitalizing local economies and initiating poverty alleviation efforts starting from the grassroots level.
Head of Presidential Communications, Hasan Nasbi, explained that the Kopdes Merah Putih is one of the three core strategies introduced as part of the “trident of poverty eradication” under President Prabowo’s administration. These three strategies include the Free Health Check Program in Schools, People’s School, and the Kopdes Merah Putih, representing health, education, and socio-economic development respectively.
The Kopdes Merah Putih program was formally launched through Presidential Instruction No. 9 of 2025 on Accelerating the Establishment of Village/Urban Cooperatives Merah Putih, which became effective on March 27, 2025. This initiative aims to uplift national economy from the village level, reduce inequality, and empower communities to combat poverty, with the involvement of thirteen ministries, two national agencies, governors, mayors, regents, and village heads.
One of the main goals of the Kopdes Merah Putih program is to address poverty, which has led to limited public access to essential services like education, healthcare, and infrastructure. With 24.06 million Indonesians living below the poverty line as of September 2024, efforts like this are crucial to achieving the vision of Indonesia Emas 2045.
The program is set to establish 80,000 Kopdes Merah Putih institutions, with 103 cooperatives serving as model prototypes to be observed for operational success and then replicated in other villages. These cooperatives are designed to strengthen rural economies, enhance food security, and combat poverty through an inclusive and modern community-driven approach.
Kopdes Merah Putih is focused on improving prosperity for farmers by enabling direct purchase of agricultural products, thereby eliminating exploitative intermediaries and reducing prices for consumers. It also aims to eradicate illegal lending operations, predatory lenders, and middlemen while boosting local businesses and improving access to essential resources and services in rural areas.
To achieve these goals, the program will focus on establishing new cooperatives, expanding existing ones, and revitalizing underperforming cooperatives. The institutions will include various components such as cooperative offices, basic food outlets, savings and loan units, rural clinics and pharmacies, cold storage facilities, and logistics distribution hubs to provide communities with affordable goods, loan options, healthcare services, and efficient agricultural storage and distribution.
