"After seeing the experiences of various countries, we can adopt a national strategy for stunting, which we refined in the Presidential Regulation," the ministry's director of community health and nutrition, Pamungkas Bahjuri Ali, said at the "Reflection of Policies for the Acceleration of Nutrition Improvement Forum,” which was held online on Wednesday.
According to him, in the 2007–2013 period, the prevalence of stunting in Indonesia declined from 36.8 percent in 2007 to 35.6 percent in 2010. However, at that time, the government did not have a special policy.
In 2013, the government joined the SUN Network, which then resulted in Presidential Regulation Number 42 of 2013 regarding a national movement for nutritional improvement because the stunting prevalence had increased to 37.2 percent by then.
For the 2018–2021 period, the government formulated a national strategy for stunting under which efforts to accelerate stunting prevention were led directly by the Vice President. The prevalence of stunting declined from 30.8 percent in 2018 to 27.7 percent in 2019.
Then, on August 5, 2021, President Joko Widodo signed Presidential Regulation Number 72 of 2021, which is currently serving as a reference for stunting handling.
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The sharpening and strengthening of commitment were carried out by involving relevant ministries/agencies so that stunting could be reduced to 24.4 percent in 2021, according to the Indonesian Nutritional Status Survey (SSGI) 2021 data.
Ali said that the progress in terms of policies must be balanced by research that is maximized so that the problems related to stunting can be resolved from their roots. The collaboration of all parties must continue and all policies must be based on evidence to accelerate the handling of nutritional problems such as stunting.
Research and renewal of innovation must continue. These should not only be targeted at overcoming stunting but also all other nutritional problems in children, especially the threat of obesity among the nation's children in the future.
"We know that nutritional problems are not only stunting; there are also wasting, anemia, and various other problems," he said.
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Translator: Hreeloita Dharma, Raka Adji
Editor: Yuni Arisandy Sinaga
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