Moeldoko Wants To Make IKN Nusantara A Child-Friendly And Stunting-Free Area

Dr. Moeldoko met with representatives of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Indonesia at the Bina Graha Building, Jakarta, Thursday (23/2). (KSP)

Presidential Chief of Staff Dr. Moeldoko conveyed his vision to make the State Capital (IKN) of the Archipelago in North Penajam Paser Regency, East Kalimantan, a child-friendly city recognized by the world. That way, he also hopes that the handling of stunting and malnutrition in children must be massively intensified, especially starting from the area around IKN.

He conveyed this in his meeting with representatives of the United Nations organization which focused on the issue of children or the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Indonesia at the Bina Graha Building, Jakarta, Thursday, February 23.

"UNICEF needs to think about strengthening IKN, especially expanding assistance to local governments around the North Penajam Paser Regency area. Do not let there be malnutrition and stunting around IKN," said Moeldoko.

"So now we have to work hard to achieve the stunting reduction target in line with the IKN development target. We hope that in 2024 we will move to IKN, there will be no more stunting and malnutrition rates," he added.

Furthermore, Moeldoko hopes that there will be a large-scale campaign between UNICEF and KSP, BKKBN, the Ministry of Health and a number of related ministries whose aim is to create awareness in the community that this stunting problem is a serious matter.

The issue of stunting, according to Moeldoko, is one of the issues of President Joko Widodo's main concern. At the beginning of President Jokowi's administration in 2013, the stunting prevalence rate in Indonesia reached 37.2 percent.

President Jokowi's stunting reduction policy shows excellent results with stunting prevalence in 2022 reaching 21.6 percent. The government is also optimistic that the prevalence of stunting in 2024 will decrease to 14 percent.

UNICEF itself has consulted with KSP since 2017 on immunization issues, vaccinations, and collaborated in the stunting reduction acceleration task force chaired by Vice President Maruf Amin.

After the pandemic, UNICEF is committed to helping the Indonesian government to pursue the improvement of public health services which had been left behind for 2 years due to the focus of COVID-19 pandemic services.

UNICEF also said that Indonesia needs to show efforts to deal with stunting to the world, following in the footsteps of 4 countries in the world, namely Peru, Thailand, Vietnam and Brazil, which have successfully documented their success in reducing stunting prevalence.

As Mr. Moeldoko said, UNICEF also wants IKN to become a world-recognized child-friendly city through the World-Level Child Friendly Cities (CFCI) assessment. UNICEF is very interested in continuing this related discussion, as well as digitizing stunting data to achieve the 2024 stunting prevalence target," said UNICEF Indonesia Country Representative Maniza Zaman.