Asia Pacific
EN
Some remote Indonesian communities still await free meals as programme resumes after review
['Saifulbahri Ismail', 'Calvin Yang']
Channel NewsAsia Asia Pacific News
The village’s rocky terrain also makes traditional farming difficult, limiting the supply of locally grown produce needed to prepare the meals.
Poor infrastructure is another major hurdle to expanding the programme into remote communities such as Lamalera.
Nutrition experts also argue that free meals alone will not solve Indonesia’s stunting problem.
“If they want to prevent stunting or malnutrition in Indonesia, they have to recruit the academics, the experts, who really know from the grassroots how to prevent stunting, because stunting itself is also coming from the whole system – from complete vaccinations to hygiene.
Tan also pointed to a lack of nutrition literacy among many Indonesian families and urged the government to incorporate nutrition education into the school curriculum.