President Jokowi Tells BKKBN to Ensure Acceleration of Stunting Reduction Right on Target

Cabinet Secretary Pramono Anung attends an online limited meeting on strategies to accelerate stunting reduction led by President Jokowi, Tuesday (01/11). (Photo by: PR of Cabinet Secretariat/Agung)

The Government has renewed its commitment to speeding up stunting reduction in Indonesia in order to achieve the 14 percent target prevalence by 2024.

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has ordered the National Population and Family Planning Board (BKKBN), which helms the acceleration of national stunting rate reduction, to ensure that the interventions carried out to reduce stunting are right on target.

“Substantially, the President’s directive tells us to focus and the interventions must be right on target. We, BKKBN, who have been appointed as implementers on the ground, must oversee whether the interventions can be right on target,” Head of the BKKBN Hasto Wardoyo said in a press statement following an online limited meeting led by President Jokowi, Tuesday (01/11).

Thanks to various interventions the Government has made, he continued, the national stunting rate has dropped significantly from 36.8 in 2007 to 24.4 in 2021.

According to Hasto, there are two kinds of interventions to accelerate stunting reduction, namely sensitive intervention and specific intervention.

Specific interventions, he added, are related to the direct causes of stunting and generally done in the health sector, while sensitive interventions deal with indirect causes and are carried out in cross-sectors.

“Sensitive [interventions] have a quite big impact. Minister of Health also said that they account for 70 percent of the impact, including clean environment, clean water supply, poverty, education. These are sensitive factors,” he said, adding that upstream sensitive intervention strengthening must be in line with downstream intervention strengthening.

“The specific factors must be strengthened too because the available budget proportion still needs support for things that are curative, not merely promotive and preventive,” he said.

For the record, specific interventions target children in the first 1,000 days of life and mothers during pre-pregnancy (female adolescents).

Hasto also expressed appreciation to Ministry of Health for the strategic measures it has designed to carry out various specific interventions.

“I was glad when I listened to the speech of Minister of Health. There are so many strategic measures for the specific [intervention]. The constraints have been completely mastered by Minister of Health and interventions are carried out, including [interventions] in breast-feeding, provision of supplementary food, immunization, and so on,” he remarked. (TGH/UN) (DH/MUR)