BREAKING: Indonesia Launches Free Meals Initiative to Combat Stunting Among Children and Pregnant Women

Indonesia’s government has launched an ambitious $28 million initiative to address malnutrition and stunting, targeting nearly 90 million children and pregnant women.

This new program, called the Free Nutritious Meal program, is part of a campaign promise by President Prabowo Subianto, who was elected last year to lead Indonesia, a nation of more than 282 million people and Southeast Asia’s largest economy.

Subianto’s administration has emphasized the importance of tackling stunting, which affects 21.5% of children under 5 years old, and has also highlighted the potential benefits of the program for farmers by increasing the value of their harvests.

The initiative aims to improve the nutritional status of Indonesia’s children, with Subianto pledging to raise the nation’s GDP growth from 5% to 8%. In his inauguration speech in October, Subianto noted that many children across the country are malnourished and lack basic necessities, such as food and school supplies.

As part of the long-term strategy to develop the nation’s human resources, he promised to provide free school lunches and milk to 83 million students in more than 400,000 schools across Indonesia, with the ultimate goal of achieving a “Golden Indonesia” generation by 2045.

“This is to address the alarming fact that too many of our brothers and sisters live below the poverty line, and too many children go to school without breakfast or adequate clothes,” Subianto said. The program’s cost is expected to exceed 450 trillion rupiah (approximately $28 billion).

Despite its high price tag, Subianto has assured that the calculations have been thoroughly done, and the government is capable of running such an extensive program.

The Free Nutritious Meal program aims to reach 19.47 million schoolchildren and pregnant women by 2025, with an estimated budget of 71 trillion rupiah ($4.3 billion) to keep the national deficit under the legal ceiling of 3% of GDP.

Dadan Hindayana, head of the newly formed National Nutrition Agency, has outlined the program’s resources, which include 6.7 million tons of rice, 1.2 million tons of chicken, 500,000 tons of beef, 1 million tons of fish, vegetables, fruit, and 4 million kiloliters of milk. The government also plans to set up at least 5,000 kitchens across the country.

On Monday, a truck delivering about 3,000 meal portions arrived at SD Cilangkap 08, a primary school in the Jakarta satellite city of Depok. The 740 students were served plates of rice, stir-fried vegetables, tempeh, stir-fried chicken, and oranges.

“We send a team to each school to facilitate the meal distribution to students every day,” Hindayana explained, adding that the program will provide one meal per day for each student, from early childhood education to senior high school levels.

The meals will provide about a third of the daily caloric needs for children, with the government covering the costs of the meals for recipients.

Despite its populist appeal, the program has faced criticism from investors and analysts who question its financial feasibility and the massive logistics required for such an initiative.

Nailul Huda, an economic researcher from the Center of Economic and Law Studies, expressed concerns about Indonesia’s tight fiscal conditions, arguing that the country’s state finances are not robust enough to support the fiscal burden, potentially leading to an increase in national debt.

Huda warned that the program’s costs may outweigh its benefits, suggesting that the government may struggle to meet its growth target of 8% while managing the economic strain of such an extensive program.

Furthermore, Huda pointed out that the program could exacerbate Indonesia’s external balance of payments issues, as the country already imports significant amounts of rice, wheat, soybeans, beef, and dairy products.

However, Reni Suwarso, the director of the Institute for Democracy, Security, and Strategic Studies, emphasized the urgency of addressing the country’s stunting problem, which remains far from the 14% reduction target set for 2024.

According to the 2023 Indonesian Health Survey, the national stunting prevalence stands at 21.5%, a slight improvement of 0.8% from the previous year. UNICEF estimates that one in 12 Indonesian children under 5 are wasted, while one in five are stunted.

Suwarso stressed the importance of addressing child malnutrition, stating, “That’s so bad and must be solved! Child malnutrition has severe consequences, threatening the health and long-term development of infants and young children throughout this nation.”