Indonesia launches free meals program to feed children and pregnant women to fight stunting

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Indonesia’s new government started an ambitious $28 million project Monday to feed nearly 90 million children and pregnant women to fight malnutrition and stunting although critics question whether the nationwide program is affordable. In his inauguration speech in October, Subianto said many children are malnourished and his promise to provide free school lunches and milk to 83 million students at more than 400,000 schools across the country is part of a longer-term strategy to develop the nation’s human resources to achieve a “Golden Indonesia” generation by 2045. “We send a team to each school to facilitate the meal distribution to students every day,” Hindayana said, adding that the program will provide one meal per day for each student from early childhood education to senior high school levels, covering a third of the daily caloric needs for children, with the government providing the meals at no cost to recipients. “That is not comparable to the effect of free meals program which can also be misdirected,” Huda said, “The burden on our state budget is too heavy if it is forced to reach 100% of the target recipients, and it will be difficult for Prabowo’s government to achieve the economic growth target of 8%.” He warned it could also worsen the external balance of payments for the country, which is already a major importer of rice, wheat, soybeans, beef and dairy products.