Indonesia has launched a US$4.3 billion free meal program for schoolchildren and pregnant mothers to help combat stunted growth due to malnutrition. Photo. a boy at the school desk
Yasuyoshi CHIBA
By AFP - Agence France Presse
Indonesia launches ambitious free meals program to combat stunting
By Agnes ANYA
Indonesia launched an ambitious US$4.3 billion free meal program on Monday to combat stunted growth due to malnutrition, one of President Prabowo Subianto's key election promises.
Prabowo promised to provide free nutritious meals to tens of millions of schoolchildren and pregnant women, saying this would improve their quality of life and boost economic growth.
“This is historic for Indonesia, as it is the first time that a national nutrition program has been carried out for children, students, and pregnant and lactating mothers,” presidential spokesman Hasan Nasbi said late on Sunday.
At least 190 kitchens run by third-party catering services opened across the country, including some run by military bases, and were busy preparing meals from midnight before distributing them to schoolchildren and pregnant women.
Khalifa Eldrian, a second-grader, smiled after finishing her free lunch of rice, chicken, vegetables, and bananas at an elementary school in East Jakarta.
“I'm happy because the food was delicious... I can concentrate more when I'm studying,” he told AFP.
The government has allocated 10,000 rupiah (62 US cents) per meal and has a budget of 71 trillion rupiah (US$4.3 billion) for the 2025 fiscal year. The goal is to provide meals to almost 83 million people by 2029.
Stunting affects 21.5% of children in the archipelago of around 282 million people. The Southeast Asian nation aims to reduce this rate to 5% by 2045.
Staff at a kitchen in Bogor, West Java, have been working tirelessly since just after midnight.
“We serve different menus every day, it has to be different so that the children don't get bored,” staff member Ayu Pertiwi told AFP.
Ayu said that they managed to serve quite nutritious meals, such as eggs and fish, even with the limited budget, although meat is probably only served twice a month.
“We can still create various menus, but the options are limited. For us, the most important thing is that the meal is nutritious,” she said.
The program was met with skepticism by experts and the public when it was first announced during last year's election campaign.
Tan Shot Yen, a nutritionist and doctor from Jakarta, said that the tests carried out at the end of last year were mainly conducted in urban centers, and the evaluations were not made available to the public.
She said the government needed transparent monitoring and robust food safety management to prevent risks and the inclusion of unhealthy processed products such as instant noodles and sausages.
“I hope this program is not just a temporary charity effort to fulfill political promises,” she said.
“For it to continue in the long term, the government must focus not only on funding but also on empowering communities so that (beneficiaries) don't just rely on free meals once a day while struggling to find food for the other two meals,” she said.
Prabowo has been advocating the program since the presidential campaign, and his team said that the poorest and most remote areas of the Southeast Asian archipelago would be prioritized.
He traveled to several countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, after taking office last October, seeking financial support.
He secured a US$10 billion deal with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in November for support in various sectors, including the free meals program.
However, analysts said the scheme is not sustainable in the long term.
“I'm quite pessimistic if everything is taken over by the central government. From an economic point of view, it's not sustainable,” Aditya Alta, a public policy analyst at the Center for Indonesian Policy Studies think tank, told AFP.
“Growth retardation is a multidimensional issue, and addressing it through just one approach is insufficient,” he said.
agn/ebe/pbt
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