FAO report calls on ASEAN member countries to step up measures to eradicate hunger and malnutrition

Jakarta - Over the past 25 years, Southeast Asia has made remarkable progress in reducing hunger by reducing the number of the hungry people in the region by half. This milestone represents the most progress made globally towards the 1996 World Food Summit, and the first Millennium Development Goal (MDG-1) hunger reduction targets. Nevertheless, according to a Regional Overview of Food Insecurity in Asia and the Pacific issued by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), 60 million people go to bed hungry every night. One-third of these hungry people (19.4 million) lives in Indonesia.

There is clearly more work to be done. Our priority is to create a 'Zero Hunger generation', and at the same time ensure that Indonesian people, especially children, have sufficient nutrition for an active and healthy life," says Mark Smulders, FAO Representative in Indonesia.

Rapid economic growth and appropriate policies in the food and agricultural sectors have helped the country reach the MDG-1hunger reduction target. The proportion of undernourished people fell from 19.7% of the population in 1990-1992, to 7.6% in 2014-2016. However, despite a substantial rise in the availability of dietary energy, Indonesia has made slower progress in reducing undernutrition. In particular, children under the age of five are suffering from inadequate nutrition. Most recent data from 2013 show prevalence of stunting in children under five years of age in Indonesia is close to 37%. This statistic implies inadequate access to diverse and nutritious foods.

Anthea Webb, World Food Programme Representative in Indonesia said: "Indonesia's success in halving hunger is a positive sign that the proposed Sustainable Development Goal, to end hunger and achieve food security by 2030, is possible. We are proud to work with Indonesians for a day when everyone's nutrition is improved and agriculture is sustainable".

Ensuring equitable access to food
Efforts have been made in Indonesia to strengthen the enabling environment to improve food security and nutrition. The Food Law (No. 18/2012) institutionalized sufficient food as a human right and defined the state's obligations to ensure the availability and affordability of sufficient, safe and nutritionally balanced food for all people at all times. However, challenges remain in the way the Food Law is applied, especially at the local level.

For many years, the Indonesian government's food policies have aimed at achieving national food self-sufficiency, particularly concerning rice as well as with other commodities, such as corn and soya beans. This was in response to the Asian economic crisis of 1997–1998 and after the food price crisis of 2007-2008. The challenge facing Indonesia today, and South East Asia as a whole, is not only to produce more food from an increasingly limited resource base, but also to ensure more equitable access to food. This needs to be done while addressing a variety of threats, such as climate change and erratic weather patterns, and it needs to be done while consciously investing in rural areas.

"Almost half of Indonesia's population live in rural areas - and agriculture and fishing are the mainstay of their livelihoods. Investing in rural areas will sustainably reduce hunger and boost economic growth. IFAD is working with the Government to support rural women and men to increase productivity and develop new market opportunities for smallholder farmers and fishers. The recently completed Rural Empowerment and Agricultural Development Project has shown that this approach can work," says Ronald Hartman, Country Programme Manager, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

Towards a sustainable development agenda in Indonesia
As Indonesia works towards the economic development of a large population across a vast archipelago, a number of challenges, such as urbanization, natural resource degradation, and climate change, require collective efforts for steady progress to be achieved. A number of policy commitments and institutional and technological innovations aimed at the eradication of hunger and malnutrition, combined with effective social protection measures, are needed to meet these challenges.This will need to be done within an overall framework of sustainable economic growth that is more equitably shared and environmentally sustainable.

In order to address these challenges head-on Smulders reiterated, "FAO calls on all sectors and development partners to accelerate actions through the Zero Hunger Challenge (ZHC) and other relevant food security and nutrition initiatives, focusing on supporting resource-poor family farms and the most vulnerable and disadvantaged groups in society."

FAO report calls on ASEAN member countries to step up measures to eradicate hunger and malnutrition