Sawt Falasteen - Indonesia launches ambitious free-meal programme to combat stunting

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 programme 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 a banana at an elementary school in East Jakarta.

"I'm happy because the food was delicious... I can concentrate more when studying," he told AFP.

The government has allocated 10,000 rupiahs (62 US cents) per meal and has a budget of 71 trillion rupiahs ($4.3 billion) for the 2025 fiscal year. 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 five percent by 2045.

Staff in a kitchen in Bogor, West Java, 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.

-Political promises-

The programme was met with scepticism from experts and the public when it was first announced during last year's election campaign.

Tan Shot Yen, a Jakarta-based nutritionist and doctor, said trials late last year were mostly conducted in urban centres 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 programme is not just a temporary charitable effort to fulfil 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 said.

Prabowo has championed the programme since the presidential campaign and his team has said the poorest and most remote areas of the Southeast Asian archipelago would be prioritised.

He travelled to several countries, including the United States 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 programme.

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.

G.AbuGhazaleh--SF-PST