Are Village Funds Effective in Improving Social Welfare in East Indonesia?

This study aims to analyze the effectiveness of village funds on social welfare of the district society in Maluku, North Maluku, Papua, and West Papua Provinces based on 2015-2018 data. The Village funds began to be distributed to all villages in these four provinces and other provinces in Indonesia in 2015. The data collection technique uses documentation technique, so that it produces secondary data in the form of a village funds, the Government Regional Budget, Gross Regional Domestic Product, and Human Development Index reports in four provinces which have been published on the official website of the Indonesian Statistics Agency. The sampling technique uses purposive sampling method with considerations in accordance with the objectives of the study. Based on the results of the regression analysis, it shows that village funds have not been able to influence on social welfare of the district society even though this has been accompanied by an allocation of capital expenditures and economic growth variables. There is a possibility that the size of the area in the villages in the four provinces and the quality of human resources for managing village funds in districts is an obstacle.