PEOPLE: International Journal of Social Sciences ISSN 2454-5899 591 Saefullah, 2018 Volume 4 Issue 1, pp. 591-610 Date of Publication: 22 nd May, 2018 DOI- https://dx.doi.org/10.20319/pijss.2018.41.591610 This paper can be cited as: Saefullah, K. (2018). From Microfinance to Gintingan: Reinventing Local Institutions for Poverty Reduction in Indonesia. PEOPLE: International Journal of Social Sciences, 4(1), 591-610. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-commercial 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, PO Box 1866, Mountain View, CA 94042, USA. FROM MICROFINANCE TO GINTINGAN: REINVENTING LOCAL INSTITUTIONS FOR POVERTY REDUCTION IN INDONESIA Kurniawan Saefullah Faculty of Economics & Business, Padjadjaran University, Bandung, Indonesia kurniawan.saefullah@unpad.ac.id __________________________________________________________________ Abstract Poverty has been acknowledged as a fundamental problem in development. It is so pervaded so the United Nations’s has put ‘no poverty’ as the first objective to be achieved in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As a 15 th biggest countries in the world in terms of Gross Domestic Product, Indonesia are has been struggling in combating poverty with the increased proportion of inequality and most of its inhabitants are economically vulnerable. Although Microfinance has been believed as a tool to reduce poverty, however, various recent researches on the microfinance impact on poverty reduction have shown pessimistic results. This paper discusses the recent issues in the development figures of Indonesia, including the role of microfinance in poverty alleviation, which has been criticized and concluded by the discussion about an indigenous local institution of ‘Gintingan’ in rural area of West Java and how it has been contributing to Sustainable Community Development in Indonesia. Keywords Microfinance, Emic Approach, Poverty Reduction, SDGs, Local Institutions, Gentian 1. Introduction: Differential Advances of Development in Indonesia Indonesia has been known as one of the largest Economy in the world. As a member of G-20 major economies and classified as a new industrialised country, the country ranks in the