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Questions raised over urgency for new nutrition body
Among the main tasks of the newly established National Nutrition Agency is to implement the free nutritious meals program, the flagship project of president-elect Prabowo Subianto's campaign platform, which will begin in January 2025.
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Students eat lunch during the trial of the free nutritious meal program at the SD 4 Tangerang state elementary school in Tangerang, Banten, on Aug. 5, 2024. The newly established National Nutrition Agency will oversee the implementation of the program, which was one of president-elect Prabowo Subianto's campaign promises during the 2024 presidential election. (Antara/Galih Pradipta )
P
resident Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s decision to establish the National Nutrition Agency, primarily tasked with implementing president-elect Prabowo Subianto’s flagship free nutritious meals program, has been met with doubts over its urgency and concerns over potential overlapping authority.
Jokowi signed a presidential regulation mandating the establishment of the new agency on Aug. 15 and appointed on Aug. 19 entomologist Dadan Hindayana from the IPB University, who was also a member of Prabowo’s campaign team during the February election, as its head.
According to the regulation, among the tasks of the new agency, which reports directly to the sitting president, is formulating “policies to ensure the fulfillment of citizens’ nutritional needs”. After his inauguration, Dadan later specified the agency’s focus was to implement Prabowo’s free meals program, aimed at feeding millions of students across the country.
“The program is scheduled to start on Jan. 2 next year. It will be organized by our units in every region across the country,” he said, as quoted by Antara.
To realize the free meals program, the agency is set to receive Rp 71 trillion (US$4.6 billion) from the 2025 state budget.
Among the first steps the nutrition agency would take for the program is to understand the situation in each region before officially starting to distribute the free meals across the country. Dadan said that the program would be directed at students including ones in pesantren (Islamic boarding schools), children under five as well as pregnant and nursing mothers, but stopped short of mentioning the number of potential recipients.
Aside from the free meals program, Dadan added that Jokowi asked the agency to organize nationwide campaigns on healthy lifestyles and nutrition.
