Vice President K.H. Ma’ruf Amin supervised directly the implementation of stunting handling at the Integrated Health Post for Child Health (Posyandu) Kenanga, Jl. Gotong Royong RT 02 RW 04, South Loktabat Village, South Kalimantan, Thursday (11/08/2022).

On this occasion, the Vice President emphasized that all Posyandu in this country should play a role as a center for accelerating stunting Reduction handling.

“Maybe some Posyandu are (ready), some are still in the process, but the Ministry of Health (must) prepare all Posyandu in Indonesia to manage services (stunting handling),” said the Vice President during his press statement.

The Vice President said it was carried out as one of the efforts to achieve the target of the stunting prevalence rate to 14 percent in 2024.

“Our stunting [prevalence rate] is still 20 percent, which in a short time, we must be able to achieve it, because our target for 2024 is only 14 percent,” he said.

Therefore, the Vice President continued, many acceleration efforts were continuously carried out, including integrating various programs and budgets from ministries and institutions at the central level to regional governments.

“We are accelerating the stunting handling process, coordinating between ministries, then also coordinating down to the bottom, [and] being supported by a budgeting system which in the past might have been only national, [but] now it must be included in the APBD as well,” he explained.

Not only that, the Vice President continued, the private sector was also involved, especially through the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program.

“The company must take part in handling stunting, it is mandatory. So, the company where it is domiciled must take part in stunting reduction interventions,” he said.

Including in South Kalimantan, said the Vice President, which is one of the provinces with a high stunting rate. According to him, the re-mitigation process was currently being carried out to determine the appropriate intervention system for each region.

“We are doing re-mitigation, for the next, it will be conducted per region. We want to know why [high stunting] occurs, then how the intervention system will be,” he said.

Lastly, the Vice President explained that the national reduction in stunting prevalence rate in 2024 was targeted at 14 percent. However, according to him, the target in each region would be different, possibly below or above 14 percent.

“So, 14 percent does not mean for all regions. In fact, some provinces are below 14 percent, even below 10 percent. There are also those that are quite large, so that maybe later in 2024 it will not be 14 percent, it could be 17 percent, [although] the total target nationally must be 14 percent. And our estimates in the coordination meeting can be achieved,” he concluded.

The Governor of South Kalimantan Sahbirin Noor added that the handling of stunting in South Kalimantan was directly led by the Deputy Governor with the support of a maximum budget and the involvement of the private sector.

“Therefore, we in South Kalimantan have always had a small posture. I think we need to raise their spirits, because they are far away located in the villages, [so] they need more attention from the government,” he said. (SM/LHS-BPMI, Setwapres)