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Reducing stunting, fixing misconceptions
An estimated 30.2 percent of Indonesia’s children under the age of five suffer from stunting. Indonesia is also a country with the fifth-highest prevalence of stunting in the world.
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Growing up: A 1000 Hari volunteer explains the features of a height chart a mother in Rinca, on the fringes of Komodo National Park in East Nusa Tenggara. The province has a high stunting prevalence of 43 percent. (Gumilang Aryo Sahadewo/-)
T
he former head of the army hospital sported a broad smile as he headed to his inauguration. Terawan Agus Putranto is now health minister despite being involved in a controversial breach of medical ethics with his “brain-cleaning method”, which former stroke patients said had cured them.
President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has said he was now focusing on improving Indonesia’s human resources in his second and last term. To help accomplish that vision, the budget allocation for health care is projected to increase by 13 percent to Rp 132.2 trillion (US$9.4 billion) in 2020.
Among the priorities of the Health Ministry are to strengthen early childhood health programs to fight the prevalence of stunting.
Stunting is a condition of chronic malnutrition that occurs during critical periods of growth and development starting from the fetus. An estimated 30.2 percent of Indonesia’s children under the age of five suffer from stunting. Indonesia is also a country with the fifth-highest prevalence of stunting in the world.
In the 2020-2024 National Medium-Term Development Plan (RPJMN), the government plans to act more aggressively in suppressing the country’s stunting rate by targeting a 19 percent reduction. The government also plans to expand the scope of its stunting program to 260 cities and regencies in 2020, from last year’s 160 regencies and cities.
Terawan stated that the causes of stunting vary and general effort could not be applied to address stunting. Instead, the efforts should be applied sector by sector.
“[The root causes of stunting] must be checked carefully because each region has its own different causes. The budget must be on target, on time and in the right direction,” Terawan was quoted as saying after the Cabinet inauguration ceremony.
