Extra efforts are necessary to achieve the stunting prevalence target of 14 percentJakarta (ANTARA) - The Presidential Staff Office (KSP) underscored the need for regional stunting reduction teams of all scopes to improve their performance to pursue attainment of the national stunting rate target of 14 percent by 2024.
"Extra efforts are necessary to achieve the stunting prevalence target of 14 percent. One (area) which we think needs to be improved is synchronizations of programs by the regional stunting reduction team," an advisor at KSP Brian Sri Prahastuti stated during a review in Medan, North Sumatra, on Friday.
In a statement received here, Prahastuti drew attention to some other issues that also impeded the progress in the achievement of the target that include dismal funding for nutritional intervention programs, lacking implementation of regulations, as well as inadequate integrated services posts, and unsatisfactory family resilience progress.
Hence, a commitment is necessary to improve integrated services posts' performance, channel more into the budget for nutritional intervention initiatives that use local foods, and adopt an electronic-based government system, she remarked.
"There needs to be uniform and integrated data and information through that electronic-based government system. Nowadays, there are several mismatching information or data, so it is hard to monitor," Prahastuti elaborated.
On the occasion, she commended the North Sumatra Stunting Reduction Team for its successful efforts in reducing the stunting rate to 4.7 percent in 2022.
She expected that North Sumatra's extensive efforts can be emulated by other regions, so that the stunting rate could decline significantly in 2023.
Prahastuti and the team from KSP visited some places in Tebing Tinggi, North Sumatra, including the Adinda Early Childhood Education, Flamboyan Integrated Services Post, Teluk Karang Public Health Center, and Kumpulan Pane Regional Hospital.
During the visit, they observed that some tools, such as scales, had yet to meet the standards.
"We (the KSP) have asked for the local Health Office to (take care of) the needed facilities, including anthropometry tools at all integrated services posts and USG devices at all public health centers," she concluded.
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Translator: Indra Arief Pribadi, Mecca Yumna
Editor: Sri Haryati
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