Indonesia’s declining stunting rate is not solely the result of food assistance. Behind it lies a collective effort involving the government, healthcare workers, community health cadres, schools, the private sector, NGOs, and millions of mothers who continue to learn how to meet their children’s nutritional needs.

Encouraging news has come from Indonesia, which has achieved an important historic milestone in the fight against stunting. Thirteen years ago, more than one in three Indonesian children under five were affected by stunting. Today, that figure has fallen to fewer than one in five. Based on the Indonesian Nutrition Status Survey (SSGI), the national stunting prevalence of approximately 37.2% in 2013 fell to 19.8% in 2024. For the first time, Indonesia has managed to bring its stunting rate below 20%.

Collaboration: The Key to Transformation

This achievement cannot be separated from the collective efforts of various stakeholders, ranging from the government, healthcare workers, nutrition cadres, and schools to various educational programs that have encouraged the public to better understand the importance of child nutrition. This collaboration is crucial, particularly because all educational efforts ultimately share one goal: changing what happens at home. Such change cannot be driven by a single party; cooperation among multiple stakeholders is needed to ensure that the impact truly reaches households.

At the family level, mothers play a major role in reducing stunting from the home. Pregnancy through the first 1,000 days of life (1,000 HPK) is a critical period for a child’s growth, but a mother’s role does not end once the child passes this stage. Mothers remain the key decision-makers in determining what their children eat every day as they grow into adulthood.

That is why the best solution is not simply to promote external interventions, but also to ensure that mothers have sufficient knowledge about child nutrition. Unfortunately, not all parents have the same level of nutritional knowledge, and building family knowledge is not something that can be accomplished through a single counseling session. Every family has a different background, experience, and set of challenges in meeting children’s nutritional needs. Therefore, behavioral change requires a process, ongoing assistance, and comprehensive collaboration carried out consistently.

Recognizing that such change cannot be placed on the shoulders of a single party, Retno Artsanti, Head of Social Investment at PT Japfa Comfeed Indonesia Tbk, said that the JAPFA for Kids nutrition and health education program for elementary school students, which has been running since 2008, was designed from the outset as a collaborative initiative involving local governments, community health centers, schools, teachers, and parents. This approach was chosen to ensure that behavioral changes could continue even after the program ended.

“The program includes providing animal protein in the form of eggs every day for six months to students experiencing malnutrition, regularly monitoring weight and height through a digital application, and promoting Clean and Healthy Living Behaviors (PHBS) through the JAPFA Healthy Day program. The program is also complemented by health education, teacher training, parental assistance, and regular monitoring to ensure that its impact can be measured consistently,” she said during the opening of the 2026 JAPFA Journalistic Works Appreciation (AKJJ) event in Jakarta on Tuesday (May 12, 2026).

Through the program, the company collected data showing that malnutrition remained a significant challenge in 2025. Of 15,498 students across 123 schools in nine regencies, 1,034 children, or approximately 6.6%, were identified as experiencing undernutrition or severe malnutrition. These findings indicate that improving nutritional status cannot be achieved through one-off interventions alone, but requires sustained assistance.

Nevertheless, the same data also show that the intervention has brought about meaningful improvements. In 2024, 762 of the 1,479 targeted students, or approximately 51.5%, succeeded in improving their nutritional status. A year later, this achievement increased, with 646 of the 1,034 targeted students (62.5%) reaching good nutritional status after participating in the program.

This article is an excerpt from the Post-Harvest section of the August 2026 edition of Poultry Indonesia magazine. Read the full article in Poultry Indonesia Magazine – August 2026 Edition. For subscriptions or further information, contact +62 877-8012-0754 or sirkulasipoultry@gmail.com.

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