Reducing Stunting with Policy Reform
Authors
Assyifa Szami Ilman
Iqbal Dawam Wibisono
Stunting in Indonesia affected 30.8% of children under five years old – almost eight million children in 2018. This makes it a highly troubling policy issue. The government has designed several central and local government interventions to reduce stunting. For example, some programs aim to create awareness of best practices for feeding children and improving sanitation facilities. While these interventions increase the availability and improve the use of food, they do not adequately address the inaccessibility of food in Indonesia, which is the result of high consumer prices for basic food commodities.
This paper finds a significant correlation between food prices and the incidence of stunting. In order to secure sustainable access to nutritious foods, trade policies that cause higher food prices need to be reviewed because they undermine the effectiveness of the government’s efforts to reduce stunting. Read our recommendations.
