Minister Wihaji Urges Family Support Cadres to Ensure Nutrition Aid Reaches Target Groups

Minister of Population and Family Development and Head of the National Population and Family Planning Board (BKKBN), Wihaji, has called on Family Support Team (TPK) cadres to ensure that nutritious meal assistance for pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers, and toddlers not enrolled in early childhood education is distributed precisely to its targets. He stated that the success of the accelerated stunting reduction programme heavily relies on the supervision of nutritional aid distribution in the field. Wihaji made the remarks during a gathering of TPK cadres and families at risk of stunting, along with a financial literacy session supporting the Foster Parent Movement to Prevent Stunting (GENTING) programme, held at the Taman Martani Cultural Hall in Kalasan, Sleman Regency, Yogyakarta Special Region. The event was attended by 2,088 TPK cadres from Sleman Regency as part of the 33rd National Family Day series, the peak of which will be held in Yogyakarta City. Wihaji said the main task of cadres is not only to educate the public but also to ensure nutritional aid is truly received by the target groups, namely pregnant women, breastfeeding mothers, and toddlers not in early childhood education, referred to as the 3B group. “The President’s instruction is clear: do not engage in too much discussion, do not hold too many seminars, check the field. Our task is to distribute nutritional intake assistance to prevent stunting. This is a unique programme of the President, because only Indonesia specifically focuses on the 3B group for stunting management,” Wihaji said. He appreciated the achievement of Sleman Regency’s TPK cadres, who have realised more than 50 percent of the nutritional aid distribution. According to him, this achievement demonstrates the importance of the cadres’ role in ensuring government programmes run effectively down to the family level. In addition to overseeing the distribution of nutritional aid, Wihaji assessed that the financial literacy provided in collaboration with the Financial Services Authority (OJK) is also important for strengthening family economic resilience to support the success of the GENTING Programme. Meanwhile, Sleman Deputy Regent Danang Maharsa said the prevalence of stunting in Sleman Regency has continued to decline over the past three years. The stunting rate fell from 5.30 percent in 2023 to 4.75 percent in 2024, and then further decreased to 4.21 percent in 2025. “We continue to strive for this figure to drop below 4 percent. With the nutritious meal assistance, nutritional problems should have been resolved. Our focus now shifts to educating parents on childcare, because feeding methods and parenting patterns remain challenges in the field,” Danang said. Wihaji added that BKKBN will continue to strengthen coordination with various ministries and regional governments so that interventions in the first 1,000 days of life run optimally. According to him, this synergy is necessary to accelerate stunting reduction while building healthy, quality, and prosperous Indonesian families.