JAKARTA — Indonesia launched an ambitious $4.3-billion free-meal program on Monday to combat stunted growth due to malnutrition, a key election campaign promise of President Prabowo Subianto.
Prabowo has pledged to provide nutritious meals free to tens of millions of schoolchildren and pregnant women, saying it would improve their quality of life and boost economic growth.
“This is historic for Indonesia for the first time conducting a nationwide nutrition program for toddlers, students, pregnant and breastfeeding mothers,” presidential spokesman Hasan Nasbi said late on Sunday.
At least 190 kitchens run by third-party catering services opened nationwide, including some run by military bases, and were busy preparing meals from midnight before distributing them to schoolchildren and pregnant women.
Second grader Khalifa Eldrian beamed after finishing his free lunch of rice, chicken, vegetables and banana at an elementary school in East Jakarta.
“I’m happy because the food was delicious…. I can concentrate more when studying,” he told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The government has allocated 10,000 rupiahs (62 United States cents) per meal and has a budget of 71 trillion rupiahs ($4.3 billion) for fiscal year 2025. It is set to deliver meals to almost 83 million people by 2029.
Stunting affects 21.5 percent of children in the archipelago of some 282 million people. The Southeast Asian nation aims to reduce the rate to 5 percent by 2045.
Staff in a kitchen in the city of Bogor, West Java province, had worked tirelessly since just after midnight.
“We serve different menus every day. It has to be different so children won’t get bored,” staff member Ayu Pertiwi told AFP.
Ayu said they were able to serve fairly nutritious meals such as eggs and fish even with the limited budget, although meat would likely only be served twice a month.
“We can still create various menus, but the options are limited. For us, the most important thing is the meal is nutritious,” she said.
The program was met with skepticism from experts and the public when it was first announced during last year’s election campaign.
Tan Shot Yen, a nutritionist and doctor based in the capital Jakarta, said trials late last year were mostly conducted in urban centers and assessments were not made available to the public.
She said the government needed transparent monitoring and robust food safety management to prevent hazards and the inclusion of unhealthy processed products, such as instant noodles and sausages.
“I hope this program is not just a temporary charitable effort to fulfill political promises,” she said.
“To continue it for the long term, the government should focus not only on funding but also on empowering communities, so [recipients] are not simply reliant on free meals once a day while struggling to find food for the other two meals,” she added.
Prabowo has championed the program since the presidential campaign, and his team has said the poorest and most remote areas of the country would be prioritized.
He traveled to several countries, including the US and the United Kingdom, after he was sworn in last October seeking funding support.
He secured a $10 billion deal with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in November for support in several sectors, including the free-meal program.
However, analysts have said the scheme is not sustainable in the long term.
“I am quite pessimistic if everything is shouldered by the central government. Economically, it’s not sustainable,” Aditya Alta, a public policy analyst from the Center for Indonesian Policy Studies think tank, told AFP.
“Stunting is a multidimensional issue and addressing it through just one approach is insufficient,” he said.
