Coordinating Minister For PMK Muhadjir Effendy: There Are 76 Million Poor Households In Indonesia

Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Culture (Menko PMK) Muhadjir Effendy (Irfan Meidianto / VOI)

JAKARTA - The Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Culture (Menko PMK) Muhadjir Effendy said that up to now, poor households in Indonesia are still relatively high, namely around 76 million spread across various regions.

"And that means there are still around 20 percent of households," he said as quoted by Antara, Tuesday, August 4.

He said that new poor households mostly come from previous poor households. This happened because of the marriage among poor family members so that new poor families emerged. Therefore, it is necessary to cut the chain of poor families in the country.

"This is important, because poverty is basically within the family itself," he said.

The high poverty rate, he said, had an impact on the growth process of children born to underprivileged families, one of which was stunting (child stunting).

He said, based on the explanation of health experts, children who are already stunted have their intelligence abilities finished.

"When people are stunted, their intelligence capabilities can no longer be fixed," he said.

In fact, according to World Bank data, 54 percent of the Indonesian workforce was previously stunted when they were young or during their infancy. So that it has an impact on the low quality of the workforce in the country.

"So why our workforce is of low quality is not only because of weak interventions in the education and health sectors, but because the origin is already stunted," he said.

Reflecting on the high stunting rate in Indonesia, Muhadjir reminded all parties, especially new households, to be truly ready to prepare the golden generation as well as possible to avoid stunting.

Moreover, currently the stunting rate in Indonesia is still above 20 percent or around 27 percent. The president, he said, is targeting the stunting rate to be below 20 percent before the end of his term.

"Currently, the government does not know the exact number of stunting in Indonesia due to the COVID-19 pandemic," said Muhadjir Effendy.