Minister: Free Nutritious Meals Programme Has Enabled 1.3 Million Poor People to Work

“I ask the Finance Minister not to cut empowerment funding any more. Empowerment must be mainstreamed in our state budget.”

Jakarta (ANTARA) – Coordinating Minister for Community Empowerment Abdul Muhaimin Iskandar said the Free Nutritious Meals (MBG) programme had created jobs for 1.3 million people from poor households.

“For a programme funded through the state budget, the best example is the National Nutrition Agency. It has built an economic ecosystem very quickly, turning 1.3 million poor people into workers. That is what an excellent state-budget programme looks like,” Muhaimin Iskandar said in Jakarta on Tuesday.

He said at least 148,500 new businesses had joined the MBG programme’s supply chain. A further 63,100 micro, small and medium-sized enterprise (MSME) suppliers were also involved in the programme’s ecosystem.

He said this model should be a lesson for ministries and government agencies, so that every budget allocation also increases productivity and people’s self-reliance.

Muhaimin Iskandar stressed that empowerment should be a mainstream priority in government budget policy. He called for empowerment funding to be treated not as an add-on, but as an important part of the planning and implementation of development programmes.

He also urged the government to expand the range of participants and the areas targeted by empowerment initiatives.

He said he was confident that linking more programmes together would give people in regions across the country greater access to jobs, education and business opportunities.

Through this approach, Muhaimin Iskandar hopes state spending will be increasingly directed towards generating tangible economic benefits.

“Empowerment should not stop at assistance. It needs to create opportunities for people to work, develop businesses and improve their wellbeing sustainably,” he said.