“Providing nutritious meal each day might seem modest, yet when implemented across hundreds of thousands of schools—330,000 to be exact—from remote villages to vibrant urban centers. It becomes a significant investment in our future,” Prabowo remarked at the World Governments Summit 2025 via video conference on Thursday (February 13).
He explained that the program targets more than 85 million children and pregnant women in Indonesia.
In addition to the free meals, Prabowo’s administration is implementing the free health screening to support quality human resources towards Golden Indonesia vision 2045.
“This is to promote preventive care and early detection of health issues, fostering a healthier and more productive society and saving a lot of money,” Prabowo said.
In order to support his welfare programs, the president revealed budget savings of more than USD20 billion or equivalent to 10 percent of the annual State Budget.
Efficiency of programs that are considered less productive will be allocated to finance more than 20 multi-billion dollar strategic projects that will transform the country, Prabowo said.
The strategic projects include investments in nickel, bauxite, copper and other critical minerals downstream industries; petrochemical industries; as well as massive AI data center.
In this regard, sound financial stewardship and management become crucial to make these all initiatives possible, he remarked.
“Additionally, we are channeling funds into projects that advance food security to turn Indonesia into a net food exporter within a few years,” Prabowo added.
The World Governments Summit is a high-level conference held annually by the United Arab Emirates in Dubai.
In the forum, leaders from various countries gather with world institutions, including the United Nations (UN), the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), experts from various sectors, civil society organizations, industry and the private sector.
The forum was first held in 2013 in Dubai. For this year's meeting, the Indonesian delegation was led by Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto.
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Translator: Mentari Dwi Gayati, Yashinta Difa
Editor: Rahmad Nasution
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