Pushing For Stunting Reduction, Vice President Ma'ruf Amin Asks For Improved Water And Sanitation Access

JAKARTA - Vice President (Vice President), Ma'ruf Amin, stated that public access to clean water and proper sanitation facilities can help reduce stunting in the community.

"There are many factors that contribute to efforts to reduce stunting, including environmental health, especially related to sanitation and the availability of proper drinking water," said Ma'ruf, at the Vice President's Official Residence, in Jakarta, as reported by Antara, Saturday, March 26.

Stunting case, explained Ma'ruf, is a case of chronic malnutrition in children that disrupts the growth and development process, so that they are physically shorter or smaller than children their age.

In the Third National Working Meeting of the Association of Indonesian Environmental Health Experts (HAKLI), the Vice President said that the government had set a target for increasing access to drinking water and proper sanitation to accelerate stunting reduction.

In Presidential Regulation Number 72 of 2021 concerning the Acceleration of Stunting Reduction, he explained, the government targets 100 percent of households to have access to safe drinking water and 90 percent of households to have access to proper sanitation by 2024.

According to Ma'ruf, in the last three years the coverage of adequate drinking water facilities has increased by 1.5 percent and the coverage of proper sanitation has increased by 2.9 percent so that the percentage of households with access to safe drinking water has reached 90.7 percent and households with access to safe drinking water. proper sanitation is around 80.2 percent.

"We have to improve this performance immediately because we only have two years left to reach the 2024 target," said Ma'ruf.

The government is trying to accelerate the reduction of stunting because these nutritional problems can hinder efforts to develop human resources and cause economic losses.

"Stunting causes a decrease in intelligence and cognitive abilities as well as disruption of the body's metabolism, so that (the body) is vulnerable to non-communicable diseases such as heart disease and diabetes. All of these will reduce productivity in the future," said Ma'ruf.

"Secondly, stunting causes economic losses of two to three percent of a nation's total GDP. For Indonesia, the total loss due to stunting reaches more than Rp. 300 trillion annually," he added.

Furthermore, Ma'ruf added, the government is also trying to reduce stunting cases, which currently stands at 24.4 percent to 14 percent in 2024. This means that within the next two years the government is targeting a reduction in stunting prevalence by more than 10 percent.