Practical training report: Ministry of Rural Development, Sarawak (MRD) / Musfirah Zharifah Zhafirah Rejli

The Ministry of Rural Development (MRD) is located at 5th floor of Bangunan Baitul Makmur, Petra Jaya. The Ministry of Rural and Land Development was established on January 2nd 1998. However due to the cabinet reshuffle on July 1st 2004, the Ministry was split into two full-fledged ministries namely Ministry of Rural Development and Ministry of Land Development. In October 2009, the Ministry of Rural Development and the Ministry of Land Development had become totally two different ministries, where each ministry has its own minister and permanent secretary. MRD's core functions are to provide better development in the rural area in term of water supply, electricity supply, improve the road and provide houses to those who in need. MRD cooperate with district and resident offices when doing development for people at rural area. Besides that, MRD also deliver its responsibilities through “Pusat Sumber Pembangunan Desa (PSPD)” and “Pusat Pertumbuhan Desa (PPD)”. PSPD main responsibilities is to plan, coordinate, implement and evaluate training programs in line with the desire to realize the political policy of the State Development and Vision 2020. PSPD focuses in giving training aids to the agencies under the state and federal governments if they need the training. PSPD also cooperates with local and national higher education institutions and Non Government Organization (NGO) such as AZAM, SALCRA, and INFRA. Meanwhile, “Pusat Pembangunan Desa (PPD)” also known as Rural Growth Centre (RGC) is a Mini Regional Rural Development Areas. RGC mainly focus on commercial projects involving the use of machinery. In short, RGC is not really encouraging traditional economic activities. Besides that, RGC should provide competition to the migration process by providing jobs to more rewarding and profitable salary. The development programs for RGC will be implemented in 20 years time which started since 7th Malaysia’s Plan in 1996. For the time being, RGC are located in several areas such as Balingian, Beladin, Long Lama, Semop and other five villages.