Unicef to help provide lower prices for children's food

JAKARTA (JP): Local representatives of the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) have expressed a readiness to help the Ministry of Health provide cheap supplementary food for Indonesian children, it was reported yesterday.

Suyono Yahya, secretary to Coordinating Minister of People's Welfare Azwar Anas, said after a monthly ministerial meeting under Azwar's coordination that the program would aim to provide supplementary food at affordable prices to the poor.

The third party in the scheme would be food manufacturers, he said.

"A program is being developed by the Ministry of Health and food manufacturers, and Unicef has said that it is willing to help shoulder the distribution cost.

"This scheme will keep prices of children's food within the reach of poor people," he said.

He did not indicate the amount of assistance offered by Unicef, but made it clear the government wished to target the children of workers involved in labor-intensive public projects in 30 regencies across Java.

The Rp 33 billion (US$3.6 million) government-run projects, which started earlier this month and are scheduled to last until the end of March, are targeted to employ 3.9 million unskilled workers.

"Unicef's offer to help us will ease the burden (of workers) and will particularly protect their children from malnutrition," he said.

Yesterday's meeting was chaired by Azwar Anas and was attended by, among others, Minister of Social Services Inten Soeweno, Minister of Women's Roles Mien Sugandhi, Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports Hayono Isman, Minister of Education Wardiman Djojonegoro, State Minister of Environment Sarwono Kusumaatmadja, and the Ministry of Health's secretary-general Hidayat Hardjoprawito.

The meeting focused on steps the government was taking to minimize the public impacts of the current monetary crisis.

Suyono said the government, for instance, had allocated Rp 500 billion to support further endeavors of 21,222 groups of village entrepreneurs who had succeeded in capitalizing on the government-sponsored Takesra/Kukesra poverty alleviation credit scheme.

"The new scheme is called Kredit Pengembangan Kemitraan Usaha (Business Partnership Development Credit), or KPKU," Suyono said.

The government would start channeling the credit to the provinces of Central, West and East Java, East Nusa Tenggara, South Sulawesi and North Sumatra.

"Each group can receive Rp 50 million from the program, and individuals can get a maximum of Rp 2 million with a 12 percent interest rate. That's still below bank interest rates," he said.

The government hoped the local entrepreneurs would focus on developing agro-industry products which could generate more employment for those who had lost their jobs due to the economic crisis.

The Indonesian Armed Forces announced early this month that about 2 million people had lost their jobs since the monetary crisis hit the country last July. Analysts, however, have claimed the number could be higher. (aan)