"The North Kalimantan provincial government has been quite progressive in handling social problems (such as) extreme poverty and stunting," he said in a statement released here on Tuesday.
According to him, his ministry coordinated intensively with the North Kalimantan government through a virtual meeting on stunting reduction and extreme poverty alleviation acceleration on Monday (March 6, 2023).
At the coordination meeting, it was made known that, based on the 2022 Indonesian Nutritional Status Survey (SSGI), North Kalimantan's stunting prevalence stood at 22.1 percent.
The figure reflected a decline of 5.4 percentage points compared to stunting prevalence of 27.5 percent in 2021.
Meanwhile, the extreme poverty rate in North Kalimantan stood at 0.63 percent in 2022, reflecting a decline of 0.23 percentage points from 0.86 percent in 2021.
The minister called for the continuous acceleration of stunting and extreme poverty handling in North Kalimantan.
"Those two problems, namely stunting and extreme poverty, need to be handled in an integrated and concurrent manner," he said.
Based on the 2022 SSGI, Indonesia's stunting prevalence declined from 24.4 percent in 2021 to 21.6 percent in 2022.
"The government is targeting (national) stunting prevalence to decline to 14 percent by 2024," he noted.
Effendy further said that the government is targeting to reduce the national extreme poverty rate from 4 percent or 10.86 million people in 2021 to zero percent by 2024.
Meanwhile, North Kalimantan Governor Zainal Arifin Paliwang said that his administration is making serious efforts to alleviate extreme poverty.
"The efforts are being made through multi-sectoral collaboration, including central, provincial, district/city, sub-district, village governments, and non-governmental institutions," he added.
The governor stated that the North Kalimantan government is optimistic of achieving the national targets set for 2024, namely zero percent extreme poverty and 14 percent stunting prevalence.
Related news: Integrated efforts can help reduce stunting, extreme poverty: BKKBN
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Translator: Wuryanti Puspitasari, Raka Adji
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
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