Gov’t Allocates Rp44.8 Trillion for Stunting Reduction This Year
Photo caption: Infographic of stunting (Source: Ministry of Health).
The Indonesian Government has allocated budget amounting to Rp44.8 trillion in order to support stunting reduction in 2022. The budget consists of spendings spread in 17 Ministries/Institutions up to Rp 34.1 trillion and in Regional Governments through Physical Special Allocation Fund (DAK) up to Rp8.9 trillion and Non-physical DAK up to Rp1.8 trillion.
“We have allotted budget amounting to Rp44.8 trillion to tackle stunting. We hope that with this large budget we could reap excellent benefit,” Vice Minister of Finance Suahasil Nazara said during an online dissemination concerning policies on DAK for stunting reduction in 2023, on Tuesday (06/14).
Vice Minister of Finance explained that the budget is distributed to Ministries/Institutions for stunting reduction in order to create better work environments, households, and health. Related to stunting handling in the regions, Minister of Finance has issued guidelines of budget transfer to the regions in 2019 to support an integrated stunting prevention.
“We hope that the guidelines can be used to encourage an integrated stunting reduction in the regions,” Suahasil said.
He affirmed that stunting is a condition indicating impaired growth of children, and such condition will implicate the future generation, daily lives, productivity, economic life, and Indonesian economic development.
“According to Bapak President’s direction, we will decrease the prevalence of stunting up to 14 percent in 2024. Currently, our rate is still above 24 percent. There is a progress but we should make a faster one,” he said.
He went on to say that stunting decrease is a national priority program, so special budget should be allocated through DAK distributed in various allocations, namely operational assistance for stunting reduction, operational assistance for family planning, and food and farming resilience.
“As a national priority program, a part of the budget provided by the State Budget is distributed to the governments of provinces-regencies/cities, because they have the authorities to implement the programs. We hope that the budget allocation to be combined with respective regional budgets to reduce stunting,” he said.
On regional incentive budget, in particular, he further said that the Central Government also includes the variable of stunting in the formula to calculate regional incentive budget.
“Therefore, we hope that the Regional Governments can really pay attention to the condition and this stunting reduction program, so the formula used to calculate the respective regional incentive budgets can be improved and then the regional incentive budgets can be given in a larger amount,” he said.
Meanwhile, in the upcoming 2023, the Government also prepares program of national stunting reduction through DAK with the hope that the DAK for stunting reduction will reflect the development of stunting prevention in the respective regions.
“We execute the program, we synchronize data, and we continue to monitor and evaluate. We continue to make intervention in stunting prevention. There will be more regions that will be intervened. However, the Central and Regional Governments should be aware of the importance of stunting handling and the current status of the stunting issue in the respective regions, and then handle it in an integrated manner. Let us together create synergy and collaboration to lower the prevalence of stunting rate in Indonesia as our effort to support the vision of creating an Advanced Indonesia,” he asserted. (PR Office of Ministry of Finance/UN) (AW/MUR)
