Towards a future in Indonesia without child undernutrition

Highlights

The children of Indonesia face grave risks of undernutrition with high rates of child wasting and stunting. Across the country, wasting threatens children’s survival, growth, and development, with severe wasting having the highest mortality rate among all forms of undernutrition.

Child wasting and stunting share common risk factors and having one type of undernutrition increases the risk of developing the other form. A child who experiences both wasting and stunting is more than 12 times more likely to die than a healthy child. The Government of Indonesia has committed to tackling undernutrition, with targets to reduce stunting and wasting prevalence and scale up wasting treatment.

Urgent, collective efforts are now required to reach these targets. Programmes should deliver essential nutrition actions to prevent wasting and stunting and to treat severe wasting when preventive actions fail.