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Protecting our young, ensuring our future
While many healthy children can fight the infection with their natural defenses, children whose immune systems are weakened by malnutrition are at a higher risk of contracting pneumonia — a challenge we are already facing in our country.
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Students of SMP 1 state junior high school in Ngargoyoso carry flags in Sumilir Valley. (JP/Maksum Nur Fauzan )
I
ndonesia is at a crossroads. On one hand, our rising prosperity and declining poverty have set us up for opportunities that can give our future generations the best start in life. On the other hand, we need to urgently secure the health and well-being of these generations if they are to take up the mantle of this progress further.
As we stand at the cusp of transition, looking ahead toward a more productive Indonesia, with stronger infrastructure and quality human resources, we must not forget to strengthen the foundation on which we will build our progress — our children.
Child health and survival has improved in our nation over the years, with under-5 and infant mortality rates more than halving between 1990 and 2017 according to data from UNICEF. However, even as recently as in 2016 alone, at least 20,000 children under the age of 5 years died of pneumonia. This means we lost two children because of this deadly disease every hour, despite our rising economic growth and development in different other fronts.
While many healthy children can fight the infection with their natural defenses, children whose immune systems are weakened by malnutrition are at a higher risk of contracting pneumonia — a challenge we are already facing in our country. According to the National Health Survey in 2018, 30.8 percent of Indonesian children under the age of 5 are stunted as a result of poor nutrition in their early childhood. This means that almost 7 million Indonesian children are vulnerable to impaired growth, poor cognitive abilities, diminished physical development, reduced productive capacity, vulnerability to devastating non-communicable diseases like strokes, diabetes mellitus, heart disease and increased risk of life-threatening diseases like pneumonia.
These numbers present a need for concerted efforts — to secure the health of every child and to protect each young life with adequate nutrition, complete immunization, sanitation and every other measure that can contribute to his/her growth in every aspect. As we ready ourselves to plant our feet firmly on the global stage, we must not lose sight of these insurmountable losses, which can be prevented.
Our government and leadership are already taking critical steps to address high stunting rates. For instance, the 2017-2021 National Strategy to Accelerate Stunting Prevention (StraNas Stunting) is aimed at reducing this condition across Indonesia through better coordination and aligning efforts across national, regional and local governments. It plans to target the high-burden areas with a strategic allocation of resources and scale up successful interventions there.
Under StraNas Stunting, we are focusing on evidence-driven and strategic spending to improve food security, sanitation, health care and caring practices for mothers and children. If the strategy is implemented completely and successfully it could prevent an estimated 2 million young children from becoming stunted by 2022.
