Economic crisis drives Indonesia into nutritional disaster
Economic crisis drives Indonesia into nutritional disaster
By Rita A. Widiadana
JAKARTA (JP): The long-lasting economic crisis is likely to
lead the majority of Indonesians to nutritional disaster because
of the rocketing prices of staple foods and other basic
commodities, said an executive of the United Children's Fund
(Unicef).
Stephen J. Woodhouse, Unicef's chief representative for
Indonesia and Malaysia, said such a condition would result in a
major setback in the development of quality human resources.
"For most of the Indonesian poor as well as for a larger
segment of the general public, insufficient food intake and
quality will affect their working productivity and levels of
growth among children," Woodhouse said.
Subsequently, the lives of vulnerable members of society
including pregnant women, infants and their breast-feeding
mothers, under-fives, school age children and adolescents alike
are in great danger.
"Even before the present crisis, Indonesia already faced a
very critical situation," Woodhouse said.
Unicef data reveals that about eight million children under
five are seriously malnourished. About 14 percent of the
country's babies are born underweight. More than 45 percent of
one-year-old children are also malnourished.
Unicef also discloses that the distressing figure of about
270,000 children under five die every year, while millions others
suffer from vitamin A, iodine and iron deficiencies.
In the present situation in which nutritious foods are scarce
and expensive, people will suffer more.
Even the prices of tofu and tempeh, cheap sources of protein,
will increase if the government eliminates its subsidy for
soybeans.
Fish will basically become the main source of protein. "Yet,
we are very concerned because businesspeople would think of
exporting fish in return for fast foreign exchange," he said.
Woodhouse warned that the negative impact of malnutrition in
childhood was irreversible. "Whereas adults can recover from
temporary food shortages and poor dietary intake, the ravages of
malnutrition in young children are irreversible."
Between six and 12 months of age is a crucial period in a
child's life because this is when cognitive, physical and social
development of a child takes place, he said.
Failure to protect this age group during the current economic
crisis will result in irreparable damage to the human resources
development potential of Indonesia for decades to come.
Malnutrition affects children's physical condition and their
ability to think would be very much reduced because brain growth
would be affected.
In addition to nutrition and health problems, Unicef also
identified an alarming situation in the education system.
"We feel so anxious that this economic crisis has badly
affected education activities," said Woodhouse.
Before the crisis, 2.1 million children failed to complete
elementary school education every year despite the fact that net
school attendance in l995/1996 at elementary school level had
reached 95 percent. Yet, even with this relatively high level of
formal education, still almost 18 million children between seven
years and 18 years do not presently attend school.
"Now, we anticipate there will be additional three million
elementary school dropouts. This could be a tragedy for the
country's human resources development program," Woodhouse said.
"Heading toward the 21th century, Indonesia has to compete
with other neighboring countries in preparing for high-quality
and talented human resources," he said.
He said the development of human resources in Indonesia still
lagged behind other countries in the region such as Malaysia, the
Philippines and Singapore.
Woodhouse said the current condition was mainly caused by
economic mismanagement, collusion and cronyism as well as
discrepancies in many government policies regarding food
distribution, health and education.
He expected that the new cabinet would be able to find a
credible solution to the country's problems.
"They must be able to come up with rational and consistent
measures to prevent people's living conditions from
deteriorating. Any program must be designed to benefit them," he
said.
He acknowledged that several crash programs aiming to ease
people's suffering were underway, including the provision of
basic commodities to the needy and intensive-labor projects.
"Such programs are helpful, but they are only some of the
makeshift measures which do not solve the current problems in a
comprehensive way," Woodhouse said.
Labor-intensive projects, for instance, are mainly intended to
help newly unemployed people, victims of mass layoffs. Besides,
the duration of such projects is also limited depending on
existing funds, he said.
"The government seems to overlook the already poor farmers,
pedicab drivers, female laborers and other low-income groups, who
are now living in destitution because of the spiraling prices of
basic goods," he said.
Unicef and the Indonesian government are also working on a
short-term project to help the poor obtain low-price
complementary food for their children aged between six months and
24 months.
As an initial step, Unicef has provided US$200,000 to purchase
nutritious complementary baby food produced for this joint
program by PT Indofood.
"We will continue seeking international funds to finance this
project," he said.
The project is now funded by several countries, such as
Australia and Canada as well as international agencies including
the United Nation Development Program and the World Health
Organization.
The baby food packages are being distributed to nine regencies
in West, Central and East Java. Officials from the coordinating
minister for social welfare's office, Unicef, regional
authorities and local community-based organizations will tightly
supervise the distribution lines.
"We have skipped the central and provincial government levels
in distributing the aid to bypass bureaucratic procedures,"
Woodhouse said.
In the past, abundant food and health packages handed over by
donor countries were reportedly distributed inefficiently. Some
of the packages barely reached the targeted recipients.
"This is, of course, only a short-term action to receive the
impaired people. Under the United Nations' scheme, we will set up
extensive programs to help Indonesian people deal with the
crisis," he said.
At present, Unicef in cooperation with experts from the
National Institute of Sciences (LIPI), local universities and
government agencies are conducting a thorough study on the
impacts of the economic crisis on the country's social, economic
and political activities.
Woodhouse said the results of this study would be used as a
guideline to impose long-term measures.
The Indonesian government, he said, had set up excellent
programs to boost people's welfare, such as poverty alleviation
programs, integrated health and education services.
"Good programs, however, will not work properly without strong
commitment," he said.
Citing an example, he said the government's supplementary food
program for elementary school children in the country's 27
provinces had not run smoothly.
"The program has been implemented successfully only in some
provinces. In other places, this kind of program is not so
satisfactorily done due to a lack of commitment and supervision
from related government officials," he said.
Woodhouse said that in implementing any community-based
program, the Indonesian government should widely involve people
from non-governmental organizations, religious institutions such
as mosques, Islamic boarding houses, churches and others, as well
as local organizations.
"The government cannot work alone. It has to empower the
whole members of the society to take the country out of the
crisis," Woodhouse said.