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🇮🇩 Indonesia /Health & Science

New Nutrition Agency Head Outlines 4 Priorities for Indonesia's Free Meal Program

From Tempo · () Indonesian

Translated from Indonesian, summarized and contextualized by DistantNews.

At a glance

News Named sources Context piece
  • The new head of Indonesia's National Nutrition Agency (BGN), Nanik S. Deyang, outlined four priority steps to reform the free nutritious meal program.
  • Key focuses include budget efficiency, restructuring existing nutrition kitchens, and expanding services to remote, frontier, and outermost (3T) regions.
  • The agency will prioritize quality over quantity of beneficiaries, concentrating on pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers, toddlers, and elementary school children.

Nanik S. Deyang, the newly appointed head of Indonesia's National Nutrition Agency (BGN), has announced four priority steps to overhaul the nation's free nutritious meal program. Her plan emphasizes budget efficiency, reorganizing existing kitchens, and extending services to underserved remote areas.

The main thing we have discussed and prepared the work plan for is moving towards budget efficiency.

— Nanik S. DeyangExplaining the agency's immediate focus during her first press conference.

During her first press conference, Nanik detailed the agency's immediate focus on budget efficiency, noting that BGN currently has approximately Rp 26.8 trillion remaining after government budget cuts. All upcoming policies will aim to maximize program effectiveness without reducing the number of beneficiaries. The four key steps include refining the beneficiary selection process, imposing a moratorium on new kitchen construction, improving the operations of existing kitchens, and developing a new implementation scheme for the 3T regions.

We have already informed the President that this year, please, we are not chasing quantity. We will improve quality.

— Nanik S. DeyangDescribing the shift in focus for the nutrition program.

The first priority is to ensure the program reaches the most needy recipients, shifting the focus from sheer numbers to the quality of nutritional intervention. Nanik stated that the agency will concentrate on pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers, toddlers, and elementary school children, aligning with recommendations from nutritionists and pediatricians who suggest focusing interventions on the first thousand days of life up to age nine.

Nutritional intervention is best from the first month of pregnancy until the age of nine or until elementary school. Well, we are pursuing that.

— Nanik S. DeyangDetailing the targeted age group for nutritional interventions.

Secondly, BGN will halt the construction of new kitchens to address uneven distribution. Many existing kitchens are concentrated in urban areas, leaving 3T regions with limited access. The agency will reassess the ideal number of kitchens per region before considering new applications. The third priority involves evaluating and improving the standards of currently operating kitchens, focusing on food safety, quality, and staff competency. Kitchens failing to meet standards may face temporary suspension.

We will fix this first. For example, if six kitchens are sufficient in one sub-district, then that's it, just six.

— Nanik S. DeyangExplaining the moratorium on new kitchen construction and the need for better distribution.
DistantNews Editorial

Originally published by Tempo in Indonesian. Translated, summarized, and contextualized by our editorial team with added local perspective. Read our editorial standards.

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