JAYAPURA - Regional Secretary Derek Hegemur said stunting or failure to thrive in children due to chronic malnutrition is a national and regional problem still being taken seriously.

The prevalence of stunting in Papua Province from the results of the 2022 Indonesian Nutritional Status Survey (SSGI) shows a figure of 34.6 (count of 29 city districts).

"The problem of stunting is not only influenced by child nutrition but also by many factors, including parenting, availability of clean drinking water, healthy latrines and so on, so that the handling and prevention must also be carried out thoroughly by involving the Regional Apparatus Organization," said Derek at the TPPS coordination meeting and Technical Guidance on performance assessment of 8 convergence actions to accelerate the stunting reduction in 2023, Thursday (20/7/2023).

Derek said that in reducing stunting, synchronization and planning are needed together with local Regional Apparatus Organizations so that handling is more targeted.

Similarly, the problem of stunting in Papua Province is one of the focuses of the health sector program to anticipate chronic nutritional conditions that cause children to grow not optimally, so as to anticipate and deal with problems.

"So today we carry out the Coordination Meeting of the Team for the Acceleration of Stunting Reduction and Technical Guidance to the District/City Government Performance Assessment Team in the implementation of convergence to accelerate stunting reduction."

"The main purpose of the coordination meeting is to facilitate and coordinate the implementation of the stunting reduction acceleration program which is the business of each Regional Apparatus Organization," said Derek. ***