Towards community-driven rural development: Path of women group in empowering rural Women’s capacities and role in rural development

The increase in rural-development issues demand a shift from a highly centralised to a more decentralised development strategy. The Indonesian government has been implementing programs and policies to promote community-driven development that encourages participatory decision-making processes among marginalised groups, including rural women, at the local level. Whereas the Indonesian government has implemented several policies and programs aimed at promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment, gender-mainstreaming strategies remain inadequately implemented at the local level, particularly in rural communities. Consequently, most women’s participation is limited to instrumental purposes only. This empirical study investigates the role, challenges, and strategy of women groups in decentralising rural development based on an actual case of women’s group formation in Kampung Areng, West Java, Indonesia, known as Kelompok Karya Ibu (KKI). To address the degrading environmental conditions of their village, KKI aims to improve the cattle waste-treatment system using biogas slurry for vermicompost production. KKI’s vermicompost production promotes zero-waste biogas, generates secondary income from vermicompost communal sales, and improves the community social network. Findings from social-network analysis indicate that the KKI’s collective effort not only enhances the socioeconomic status of the members but also contributes to the village’s overall socioeconomic development. KKI’s high betweenness centrality positions it as an intermediary that connects other nodes in Kampung Areng’s social network. KKI bridges relations between local and external actors, thus enabling knowledge and capital distribution from external actors to the Kampung Areng community, and vice versa. Results from ego-network analysis bolstered confidence in KKI’s role in bridging and circulating resources among local and external actors participating in Kampung Areng’s community-based cattle-farming waste management. Based on the case of KKI, our study reinforces previous evidence suggesting the significance of strong bonding in rural-community capacity building, particularly in amplifying the implementation and deliverability of the local initiative. Extending prior research, we discovered that the experience and knowledge obtained from local initiatives, which are bolstered through initial strong community bonding, foster mutual knowledge sharing with external actors, thus resulting in the bridging and linking of social capital. These findings are significant to policymakers, nongovernmental organisations, and other stakeholders involved in promoting rural development and women’s empowerment in rural communities. They highlight the necessity for concerted efforts to promote the participation of rural women in the development and planning process through policies that account for their unique demands and challenges.