Handling stunting cannot be done alone, it needs to be coordinated with all stakeholders, head of the Aceh BKKBN, Sahidal Kastri, said here on Thursday.
"We cannot handle stunting alone. Thus, we continue to strengthen synergy with various parties, including regional governments, in handling stunting in Aceh," he said.
"Many stakeholders are involved in stunting handling, such as provincial governments, district or city governments, and others," he added.
Aceh is among the provinces with a relatively high stunting prevalence in Indonesia. Stunting prevalence in Aceh has reached 33.2 percent. This means that out of 100 children in Aceh, 33 are stunted.
Stunting is not a disease. Stunting concerns abnormal growth in children, which leaves them short in height. Stunting also affects children's intelligence. Children who experience stunting have lower intelligence, Kastri said.
"The one that became a problem is the fact that stunting handling has not been optimal," he added.
"However, we, as stunting handling coordinators in Aceh province, continue to strengthen synergy so that stunting prevention can be more optimal," he said.
According to Kastri, stunting handling not only covers health problems, but also factors such as environmental sanitation, clean water, as well as marriage age.
Coordinator of the Aceh stunting reduction acceleration task force, Saifuddin, said that his group has continued to develop coordination on stunting handling.
This is important to be done considering that there is a difficult target of reducing the stunting figure nationally by up to 14 percent by 2024.
"This certainly requires hard work from various parties so that the stunting reduction target can be achieved, including families' full support. Stunting handling is being undertaken to produce a golden generation in the future," he said.
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Translator: M. Haris S A, Fadhli Ruhman
Editor: Suharto
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