World Bank: Malnutrition, Stunted Growth & Policies in Indonesia
When visiting Indonesia for the first time as World Bank Vice President for the East Asia and Pacific, Victoria Kwakwa stated that the World Bank is committed to support Indonesia’s efforts to achieve higher economic growth and greater prosperity for its +250 million people. During her visit, Kwakwa met various government officials and stakeholders, including Vice President Jusuf Kalla, Chief Economics Minister Darmin Nasution, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati, as well as representatives from civil society, opinion leaders, analysts and the private sector.
Since the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s, Indonesia has managed to strengthen macroeconomic resilience and reduced vulnerabilities through prudent macroeconomic and monetary management. Southeast Asia's largest economy has become a vibrant middle-income country with a rising middle class and has cut the poverty rate by more than half.
Still, Indonesia faces the daunting challenge of sharing prosperity more widely. Income inequality remains high, with about one-third explained by differences in individuals’ circumstances at birth. This situation causes concern about the future social and economic context of the country.
During the meetings with Indonesian officials and stakeholders, Kwakwa discussed a range of issues, including the central government’s reform efforts that are aimed at achieving higher and more inclusive economic growth, through attention to macroeconomic stability, structural reforms, and greater focus on infrastructure as well as human capital investment.
Kwakwa said Indonesia’s progress in strengthening the nation's macroeconomic fundamentals and recent improvements in the business and investment climate will help achieve its growth objectives against a challenging international economic environment. Indonesia is also setting a good example of how strategic policy reforms and a focus on service delivery at the local level can benefit the poor and contribute to lower poverty rates.
However, malnutrition and stunted growth remain two matters that need attention and require action. Malnutrition exacerbates the unfair start in life that poorer children often face, undermining their ability to succeed as adults. Stunted growth during the critical period of early life, the first 1,000 days, impairs brain cell development, the impact of which can be devastating. Research shows that stunted children often do worse in school and may lose ten percent of their earnings over a lifetime. In 2013, almost 9 million or 37 percent of Indonesian children under five were stunted, making it the country with the fifth-highest percentage of stunted children in the world.
Stunted growth is also associated with increased risk of developing non-communicable diseases and increased incidence of obesity later in life. High prevalence of non-communicable diseases is related with economic losses due to increased healthcare costs and lost productivity.
Kwakwa said global experience shows that the fight against stunting can be won by adopting a holistic approach that addresses multiple drivers of stunting and by creating synergies between different program interventions within and outside the health sector. For example, Peru cut stunting rates in half less than a decade. Key success factors included: strong commitment at the highest level of government, allocation of budgets to the geographical areas with the highest stunting rates, use of an innovative incentive structure that aligned incentives for households, health facilities and local government to tackle stunting, and use a unified data system that integrates social assistance programs.
Policy makers, civil society, private sector and development partners need to work together to enhance investment in nutrition, scale up what works, and support research that informs policy responses. Such collaboration would improve the coordination and integration of the various programs to address the multi-sectoral determinants of stunting and will improve the quality of government spending and local service delivery for good nutrition outcomes.
The World Bank is committed to work together with Indonesia and other partners to develop strategies, policies and programs that will help move the country towards a vision where no child is stunted nor malnourished, where every child is given the best chance early in life to achieve their ability to learn, to thrive and contribute to Indonesia’s aspiration to be counted among the most prosperous countries in the world.
Source: World Bank