Indonesia launches free meals program to feed children and pregnant women to fight stunting

President Prabowo Subianto's Free Nutritious Meal program aims to fight child malnutrition and stunting in Indonesia.

Indonesia's new government started an ambitious $28 million project on Monday (January 6, 2025) to feed nearly 90 million children and pregnant women to fight malnutrition and stunting although critics question whether the nationwide program is affordable.

The Free Nutritious Meal program delivers on a campaign promise by President Prabowo Subianto, who was elected last year to lead the nation of more than 282 million people and Southeast Asia's largest economy. He said the program aimed to fight the stunting of growth that afflicts 21.5% of Indonesian children younger than 5 and would raise the earnings of farmers and the value of their harvest.

Mr. Subianto has pledged to accelerate GDP growth to 8% from 5% now.

In his inauguration speech in October, Mr. Subianto said many children are malnourished and his promise to provide free school lunches and milk to 83 million students at more than 400,000 schools across the country is part of a longer-term strategy to develop the nation’s human resources to achieve a “Golden Indonesia” generation by 2045.

“Too many of our brothers and sisters are below the poverty line, too many of our children go to school without breakfast and do not have clothes for school,” Mr. Subianto said.

Mr. Subianto’s signature program, which had included free milk, could cost upward of 450 trillion rupiah (US$28 billion). He said his team had made the calculations to run such a program, and “We are capable,” he asserted.

The government's target is to reach 19.47 million schoolchildren and pregnant women in 2025 with a budget of 71 trillion rupiah ($4.3 billion) so as to keep the annual deficit under a legislated ceiling of 3% of GDP, said Dadan Hindayana, the head of the newly formed National Nutrition Agency.