VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

The Vice President, Ma'ruf Amin, asked ministries and non-ministerial government agencies (K/L) and local governments to converge in implementing programs to accelerate the prevention of stunting or stunting in children.

Currently, at the central level, there are 23 K/L involved in handling stunting and all of them have their own activity programs and budgets, he said, as chairman of the National Team for the Acceleration of Poverty Reduction (TNP2K).

"Not to mention the budget provided by the regional government and village government. Therefore, the President and I directly lead the acceleration of stunting prevention in children, especially to ensure that convergence occurs and the targets that have been set can be achieved," he said, opening the Meeting Technical Coordination for the Acceleration of Child Stuntness Prevention from Jakarta, Wednesday.

Convergence is an effort to ensure that intervention programs can be implemented properly in areas with high rates of stunting in children so that efforts to reduce the prevalence of stunting in children can be achieved.

"This convergence is necessary because in fact most of the intervention programs are already available, but not yet convergent. The reduction in the prevalence of stunting in children will be effective if a region accepts the entire program or activity," he explained.

To realize convergence in the handling of child stunting, he advised the ministers, heads of institutions, and heads of regions involved to coordinate with each other and eliminate sectoral egos.

"Every institution involved is asked to eliminate sectoral egos because convergence requires cooperation between parties," he said.

The government has the ambition to reduce the national stunting prevalence rate in children to 14 percent by 2024. In 2013, the stunting rate in children in Indonesia was recorded at 37.2 percent, and this figure continues to decline in 2018 to 30.8 percent.

Referring to data from the Ministry of Health, in 2019 there was 27.7 percent of children under five years of age (toddlers) in Indonesia who experienced stunted growth.

"This means there are about 6.5 million Indonesian toddlers who suffer from malnutrition for a long time, which then makes them experience this stunting," he said.

Therefore, the government continues to suppress the number of children with stunted growth through the fulfillment of nutrition for pregnant women and the growth of the first 1,000 days of a baby's life, to create superior and quality Indonesian human resources. (Antaranews)