Stunting Prevalence Of 31.4 Percent, Ministry Of Home Affairs Asks West Nusa Tenggara To Maximize Integrated Healthcare Center Functions

Director General of Regional Development at the Ministry of Home Affairs, Teguh Setyabudi. ANTARA/HO-NTB Provincial Government

NTB - Stunting or stunting in the Province of West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) is still at 31.4 percent. The Ministry of Home Affairs (Kemendagri) encourages the NTB Provincial Government to move to reduce the prevalence of stunting.

The Director-General of Regional Development at the Ministry of Home Affairs, Teguh Setyabudi, said that the role of Family Welfare Empowerment (PKK) and Integrated Healthcare Center (Posyandu) was needed in dealing with the stunting problem.

"It is necessary to optimize the role of the PKK and posyandu in reducing this stunting rate," he said at the opening of the 2023 NTB Regional Government Work Plan Musrenbang (RKPD), in a written statement, Friday, April 1.

According to him, there needs to be a collaboration between the two PKK institutions and the posyandu because many of their work programs touch the community at lower levels.

For example, in PKK there is a program to use yards for food security for Indonesian families, a program to disseminate and promote food made from local raw materials, house renovation activities to create livable houses in collaboration with Public Works and Public Housing (PUPR) and so on.

Meanwhile, posyandu also has health programs for mothers, babies and toddlers, health programs for school-age children and adolescents, health of productive age, health for the elderly, improvement of community nutrition and others.

In addition to the problem of stunting, his party also encourages NTB to be able to reduce extreme poverty, because the extreme poverty rate in NTB reaches 284.000 people.

Where there are eight districts and cities that are included in priority areas for 2022, namely West Lombok Regency, Central Lombok Regency, East Lombok Regency, Sumbawa Regency, West Sumbawa Regency, North Lombok Regency, Mataram City, and Bima City.

Extreme poverty is measured using absolute poverty measures that are consistent across countries and across time. Extreme poverty is defined as a condition where people's welfare is below the extreme poverty line-equivalent to USD 1.9 Purchasing Power Parities (PPP).

The extreme poverty rate in 2021 nationally is four percent or 10.865.279 people.

"In accordance with President Joko Widodo's direction at a limited meeting on the strategy for reducing extreme poverty on July 21, 2021, which mandates the extreme poverty rate to fall to zero percent in 2024," he said.

Apart from stunting and extreme poverty, Teguh also explained the realization of macro indicators in NTB. Where economic growth has increased from -0.640 percent in 2020 to 2.3 percent in 2021.

"Further and continuous efforts are needed to increase NTB's economic growth," he said.

The percentage of poor people in NTB has decreased. In 2021 the poverty rate is 13.83 percent, while in 2020 it is 14.23 percent. However, NTB's poverty rate is still above the national level.

NTB Governor Zulkieflimansyah said his party had data by name by address in each posyandu throughout NTB. So the Governor said, the stunting rate in 2021 in NTB is in the range of 19 percent.

"Earlier, the Deputy Governor told me, the figure was not up to 31 percent, but in the range of 19 percent, because there is data by name by address," he said.