Kupang, Bandung, INDONESIA – Nutrition International recently hosted a series of dissemination events for the Better Investment for Stunting Alleviation (BISA) project, co-implemented with Save The Children, in East Nusa Tenggara and West Java provinces. The events were attended by provincial- and district-level government officials who deliberated on experiences, learnings and plans for sustaining good practices of the BISA project.

BISA was implemented in four districts – Sumedang and West Bandung in West Java Province, and Kupang and Timor Tengah Utara in East Nusa Tenggara Province from 2019 to 2024. The project deployed evidence-based, high-impact interventions targeting the critical first 1,000 days, from pregnancy until the child is two years, as well as during adolescence.

“There have been many strategic efforts in reducing stunting in East Nusa Tenggara and convergence action from multisectoral stakeholders is one of the most important,” said Maxianses Manafe, Secretary of East Nusa Tenggara Provincial Planning and Development, Research and Innovation Agency (Bapperida). “With BISA, we worked together with one goal to accelerate stunting reduction in the province.”

Since its implementation, BISA has contributed to the improvement of health and nutrition status among adolescent girls and pregnant mothers by providing training and technical assistance for health workers and teachers.  BISA’s endline survey data shows a rise in the consumption of weekly iron and folic acid supplementation (WIFAS) by adolescent girls in 12 months from 2020 to 2023 — a rise of 12.5% in West Bandung, 18.6% in Sumedang, 58.6% in Kupang and 35.8% in TTU.

“As per the 2023 survey, stunting in West Java is still above the national prevalence, but we should not let ourselves down; we need to continue our hard work,” said Iendra Sofyan, Head of West Java Province Development and Planning Agency (Bappeda) during his opening remarks. “We thank BISA for its contribution so far in stunting reduction in the province. We hope the action plans can be well implemented to ensure the sustainability of the best practices in stunting reduction efforts.”

BISA also contributed to improvement in the knowledge and counselling skills of health workers about nutrition commodities and associated nutrition services for pregnant women. As a result, mothers were able to better understand the nutrition messages imparted by the health workers during counselling sessions. Additionally, BISA supported the governments in strengthening the management of micronutrient supplementation supply chain in the intervention districts. Through training and technical assistance that BISA provided, the capacity of nutrition programmers and pharmacy staff in Puskesmas to forecast stock and avoid a stock-out situation improved.

“We hope all BISA’s good practices that have emerged from our collaboration can be sustained by the provincial and district governments that we supported in the past five years.

—Herrio Hattu, Country Director for Indonesia, Nutrition International

In addition, BISA was successful in improving local governance for stunting reduction initiatives. The project facilitated the issuance of a revised Regent’s Decree (Perbup) in Sumedang and West Bandung on stunting reduction acceleration to ensure alignment with Presidential Regulation no.72/2021 on stunting reduction and established the local Scaling Up Nutrition civil society organizations, which emphasized the importance of convergence actions by multisectoral stakeholders in stunting reduction efforts. Through the SUN CSO’s advocacy, the Religious Affairs Ministry Office in TTU issued a circular letter encouraging religious leaders to incorporate messages on health and stunting in their sermons and religious activities.

“As we come to the end of our project implementation, we hope all BISA’s good practices that have emerged from our collaboration can be sustained by the provincial and district governments that we supported in the past five years, or even replicated by other districts who attended today’s event,” said Herrio Hattu, Country Director for Indonesia, Nutrition International.

Apart from government officials from BISA’s intervention districts and provinces, government officials from other cities and districts in the two provinces also joined the events online.

Learn more about Nutrition International’s work to improve nutrition in Indonesia through the Better Investment for Stunting Alleviation (BISA) project.