The National Population and Family Planning Agency (BKKBN) has said that the National Action Plan to Accelerate Stunting Reduction (RAN PASTI) will help put the focus on stunting alleviation.
“The year 2022 was indeed something special because we lived by the new Presidential Regulation. Previously, the agency did not have specific rules, so this regulation started a new and noble task from the President. We must achieve it,” the head of BKKBN, Hasto Wardoyo, said in Jakarta on Monday.
RAN PASTI will serve as the government’s reference to alleviate stunting through the crucial human life cycle approach, he added.
RAN PASTI provides a guideline to stakeholders and local governments on handling stunting based on Presidential Regulation Number 72 of 2021 concerning accelerating stunting reduction, which targets to bring down the stunting rate from 24.4 percent to 14 percent by 2024.
Through RAN PASTI, the government will address stunting problems by meeting the nutritional needs of mothers and infants in the first 1,000 days of life (HPK) and ensuring the availability of clean water, proper sanitation and hygiene, and well-maintained latrines for their health.
“RAN PASTI has also made us form new things like the team for the acceleration of stunting reduction (TPPS) and the family assistance team (TPK). At the moment, we are grateful because 99 percent have been formed in sub-districts/villages and even 100 percent in districts,” Wardoyo said.
Apart from RAN PASTI, the government is also handling the management of an application for marriage and pregnancy preparation called Elsimil, which can record the health condition of prospective brides and grooms, he added.
“We have to be grateful for the massive information system that we built in 2022 to disseminate information about stunting, including socialization through radios,” he informed.
He said that the massive use of social media has strengthened the impact of RAN PASTI Elsimil. As a result, in 2022, there were more people talking about stunting, Wardoyo claimed.
He said he believes that stunting is starting to become a concern for current society. Data collected by the BKKBN through monitoring on Twitter showed that during the first three months of 2022, there were 271 conversations about stunting.
However, during that time, the word “stunting” on Twitter still tended to be used as a joke. Thus, BKKBN undertook the responsibility to straighten that out.
The results of monitoring online media coverage in 2021 also recorded 7,583 articles on stunting, with an average of 4 tweets and 22 articles released on the subject per day. However, the number was relatively small for a national priority program.
“Then from the results of the surveys, it shows that more than 90 percent of people have heard of stunting, even though more than 50 percent do not know exactly, but it is part of our process,” he added.
Source: Antara News