President Prabowo Subianto feeds children and pregnant women across the country at a primary school in Depok, West Java, despite criticism that the necessary logistics could negatively impact Indonesia’s national finances and economy. Students eat at the start of an ambitious free meals program. Indonesia, Monday, January 6, 2025 Dita Alankara/AP Hide Caption
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Dita Alankara/AP
JAKARTA, Indonesia — Indonesia’s new government on Monday launched an ambitious $28 million project to feed nearly 90 million children and pregnant women battling malnutrition and stunting, but the nationwide program remains Its affordability has been questioned by critics.
The free nutritious meal program fulfills a campaign promise by President Prabowo Subianto, who was elected last year to lead Southeast Asia’s largest economy with a population of more than 282 million people. He said the program aims to combat stunting, which affects 21.5% of children under five in Indonesia, and increase farmers’ incomes and the value of their crops.
Subianto has promised to accelerate GDP growth from the current 5% to 8%.
In his inaugural address in October, Subianto said that many children were malnourished and that the promise to provide free school meals and milk to 83 million students in more than 400,000 schools across the country was an important step in reducing the nation’s human resources. It is part of a long-term strategy to foster Achieve a “Golden Indonesia” generation by 2045.
“Too many of our brothers and sisters are below the poverty line, too many children go to school without breakfast and don’t have clothes to wear to school,” Subianto said.
Subianto’s flagship program, which includes free milk, could cost more than 450 trillion rupiah (US$28 billion). He said his team was working on the calculations to implement such a program and insisted: “We have the capacity.”
The government aims to increase the number of school children and pregnant women to 19.47 million in 2025 with a budget of 71 trillion rupiah ($4.3 billion) to keep the annual deficit within the legal limit of 3% of gross domestic product (GDP). That’s what Chief Secretary Dadan Hindayana said. The newly established National Nutrition Agency.
Mr Hindayana said the funds would buy an estimated 6.7 million tonnes of rice, 1.2 million tonnes of chicken, 500,000 tonnes of beef, 1 million tonnes of fish, vegetables and fruits, 4 million kiloliters of milk and at least 5,000 kitchens. said that it would be installed. Even all over the country.
On Monday, a truck loaded with about 3,000 meals arrived at SD Silangkap 08, an elementary school in Jakarta’s satellite city of Depok, just before lunch. The 740 students were served plates containing rice, stir-fried vegetables, tempeh, stir-fried chicken and oranges.
“We are sending teams to each school to facilitate daily meal distribution to students,” Hindayana said, adding that the program provides one meal a day to students from preschool to high school level. , it added, covering one-third of the school’s total students. The government provides free meals to recipients to meet children’s daily calorie needs.
But the populist plan has drawn criticism from investors and analysts for everything from its confusion with industry lobby interests and the sheer volume of logistics required to the strain on Indonesia’s public finances and economy. .
Nairul Huda, an economic researcher at the Economic Law Research Center, said that due to Indonesia’s tight fiscal situation, the national finances are not strong enough to support the fiscal burden, which will lead to further national debt. said.
“This is not comparable to the effectiveness of the free meal program, which can also be misdirected,” Huda said, adding that “being forced to reach 100% target recipients would reduce the national budget.” The burden is too heavy and it will be difficult.” To help the Prabowo government achieve its 8% economic growth target. ”
He warned that the country’s external balance, already a major importer of rice, wheat, soybeans, beef and dairy products, could also deteriorate.
However, Leni Swarso, director of the Institute for Democracy, Security and Strategy, said Indonesia was still far from meeting its goal of reducing stunting rates by 14% in 2024.
According to the 2023 Indonesia Health Survey, the national prevalence of stunting was 21.5%, a decrease of about 0.8% from the previous year. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates that one in 12 children under the age of five in Indonesia is expendable and one in five is stunted.
Wasting refers to a child’s low weight for their height, and stunting refers to a child’s short height for their age. Both conditions are caused by malnutrition.
“It’s so bad we have to solve it!” Swarso said: “Child malnutrition has serious consequences and threatens the health and long-term development of infants and young children across this country.” said.
