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alnutrition is a prolonged hindrance to one'€™s development and yet is often oversimplified as few fully understand its causes and impacts.

Being undernourished is when one has an insufficient food intake and has repeated infections, leading to one being underweight, stunted, or having a low weight for height (wasting). In all cases, one is deprived of vitamins or minerals, according to the UN Standing Committee on Nutrition (UNSCN) sixth report on the world nutrition situation, titled Progress in Nutrition.

Malnutrition goes beyond access to food, but is also about getting the right intake into one'€™s stomach to meet nutrition needs, having the right care and accessing sufficient water, sanitation and health services.

Further, the basic causes of malnutrition are inevitably related to all development issues, from economic, political to ideological superstructures.

As the largest nation in Southeast Asia and the fourth most populous country in the world, Indonesia sets a model of successful sustainable economic growth. However, quick economic growth is coupled with the slow decline of malnutrition.

In terms of purchasing power parity, Indonesia'€™s gross domestic product (GDP) per capita has risen from US$8,027 in 2010 to $9,254 in 2013. On the other hand, the prevalence of under-five stunting has only declined from 39 percent in 2010 to 36 percent in 2013.

Of the 117 countries with complete data on all three indicators (stunting, wasting and being underweight) in the Global Nutrition Report, 17 countries, including Indonesia, are present with overlapping stunting, wasting and underweight factors.

Further, 37 countries have data on all five nutrition-specific interventions studied in the report: early initiation of breastfeeding within one hour after birth, exclusive breastfeeding of infants under 6 months old, continued breastfeeding up to 12 months, the vitamin A supplementation of preschool-age children and the iron-folic acid supplementation of pregnant women for more than 90 days.

As one of these 37 countries, Indonesia'€™s coverage for these five interventions and practices is considered weak (less than 50 percent fulfillment). This is somewhat influenced by decentralized nutrition plans and intervention delivery throughout the country.

Sumarto, Vothknech and Wijaya (2013) argue that Indonesia has adopted a '€œBig Bang'€ decentralization approach since Asian financial crisis in 1998, changing the country from one of the most centralized systems in the world to one of the most decentralized.

The responsibility for most public services has been decentralized to the local level since 2001 and has generated variations in the quality of nutrition services.

It is a big task for the current central government at national level to guide autonomous local governments at subnational levels (provincial, district and municipal) to be accountable.

To do this, there should be more resources, a clearer division of responsibilities between the different levels of governments to avoid overlapping roles and improved human and institutional capacities of local governments.

Challenges in the fight against malnutrition vary from political commitment to behavioral change at the individual level, let alone the egocentrism within diverse government agencies related to nutrition.

Having lived in the Central Sulawesi capital of Palu for two years, doing community development work in addressing malnutrition, I experienced the challenges of multi-sector coordination among different agencies in addressing malnutrition issues. There was a lack of knowledge on '€œwho was doing what'€ regarding the divisions of main tasks and responsibilities and the existing, yet misleading, perspective of the nutrition issue belonging solely to the regional health authorities.

To tackle malnutrition, integrated work between agencies working on health, community empowerment and rural governance, including integrated health services posts (posyandu), social services, family planning, women empowerment as well as regional development planning boards (Bappeda) that manage regional budget plans, must take place.

In addition, a partnership between these government agencies with NGOs and civil society as well as religious or community leaders is important to address malnutrition, as this issue also involves behavioral change at the household level.

Only when everyone grows their sense of ownership of this issue will multi-sector cooperation and integration boost progress in malnutrition eradication.