The Ministry Of Finance Designs The State Budget To Be More Aggressive In Eradicating Stunting In Indonesia

The Ministry of Finance (Kemenkeu) stated that as an effort to provide protection and provide a smart generation, the government continues to strive to improve the quality of human resources in Indonesia and reduce stunting. Meanwhile, one of the main ways is through specific interventions and sensitive interventions in the state budget.

Director General of Budget at the Ministry of Finance Isa Rachmatawata said that to build and advance Indonesia, more resilient and productive Indonesian human resources (HR) were needed.

We choose the design of state spending which is sufficient to make our children able to grow healthy and become intelligent people. The attention of the state budget to children is in many areas. We want to make sure that these children get good vaccinations, enough food, good education, and so on," he said as reported by the official website, Thursday, July 20.

Isa explained, in recent years the State Budget has allocated a large budget for the health sector as one of the sectors most affected by the pandemic. However, attention is also paid to other sectors related to the needs of children, for example the education sector through the Indonesia Smart Program and the Indonesia Smart Lecture Card which in 2022 is allocated IDR 10 trillion.

"Our budget for the field of education does not decrease, we even provide special budget allocations so that children can access education online. It becomes an extra cost. We distribute the use of internet access for free to many students and students," he said.

In particular, in the health sector and child protection, the state budget allocates IDR 48.3 trillion in 2022 and IDR 49.4 trillion in 2023.

Kita ingin tahun depan bisa di bawah 14 persen. Ini satu tujuan yang ternyata tidak mudah. Meskipun sudah jauh menurun dibanding dua-tiga tahun lalu, tetapi target 14 persen tinggal satu tahun. Ini bukan tantangan yang sederhana, kita harus semakin fokus, tegasnya.

For this reason, continued Isa, the APBN contains a budget for accelerating stunting reduction which is carried out through three interventions, namely specific interventions, sensitive interventions, and support interventions involving various agencies and cross-sectors.

That way, Isa hopes that all parties involved in various APBN programs for Indonesian children can continue to work together and make maximum use of the budget.

"For Indonesian children, continue to learn as much as possible. And don't forget to continue to grow love for our country so that later you will become a generation capable of building a better Indonesia than the current generation," concluded Isa.