…West Sulawesi's stunting prevalence, indeed, declined by 6.6 percentage (points). However, West Sulawesi is still one of the provinces that have a high stunting prevalence.
Jakarta (ANTARA) - Vice President Ma'ruf Amin has said that stunting reduction efforts must involve all elements of the community, down to the village level.

He conveyed this while chairing the “Stunting Reduction Acceleration Coordination Meeting” in Mamuju district, West Sulawesi on Thursday, according to a press release received here the same day.

West Sulawesi is one of the provinces that have received attention from the government regarding accelerating stunting reduction, he noted.

Even though, in the past four years, West Sulawesi's stunting prevalence has tended to decline, it is still pegged at 35 percent, which is high, he said.

"In the past 4 years, from 2018 to 2022, in general, West Sulawesi's stunting prevalence, indeed, declined by 6.6 percentage (points). However, West Sulawesi is still one of the provinces that have a high stunting prevalence," he added.

Based on the results of the 2022 Indonesian Nutritional Status Survey (SSGI) carried out by the Ministry of Health, West Sulawesi's stunting prevalence stood at 35 percent.

"It means, there has been an increase of 1.2 percentage (points) from 2021," he pointed out.

He said that in terms of food security, as measured by the Food Security Index (IKP), West Sulawesi is categorized as a very resilient region.

Thus, there should be no problem in terms of the availability of food to support stunting prevention, he added.

The Vice President expressed his appreciation for the commitment, performance, and efforts made to reduce stunting.

Nevertheless, there are several obstacles to the implementation of the program and several levels of intervention are still considered not good yet, he noted.

Indonesia's stunting prevalence declined by 2.8 percentage points to 21.6 percent in 2022 from 24.4 percent in 2021, based on the 2022 SSGI. The central government is aiming to reduce stunting prevalence to 14 percent by 2024.


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Translator: Rangga Pandu, Raka Adji
Editor: Tia Mutiasari
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