Can Indonesia afford free lunches?
The Inquiry
BBC
4.6 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 19 August 2025
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Children in Indonesia are now receiving free school meals — part of a bold new plan by President Prabowo Subianto to tackle malnutrition. Around one in five children in the country are stunted, meaning they are too short for their age. The lunch programme is central to Prabowo’s vision of a “Golden Indonesia” – a prosperous, high-income nation by 2045. But not everyone is happy. To fund this and other populist pledges, the president has reallocated billions in public funds, cutting budgets from ministries including health and education. There have also been reports of food poisoning linked to the programme. Meanwhile, millions of Indonesians are struggling. The International Monetary Fund warns the country's unemployment rate will rise to 5% this year — the highest among the Southeast Asian economies it tracks. On this week’s Inquiry, we’re asking: ‘Can Indonesia afford free lunches?’ Contributors: Dini Widiastuti, Executive Director, Yayasan Plan International Indonesia Julia Lau, Senior Fellow and Coordinator, Indonesia Studies Programme, ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore Dr Suman Chakrabarti, Associate Research Fellow in the Nutrition, Diets, and Health Unit, International Food Policy Research Institute, New Delhi, India Bhima Yudhistira, Executive Director, Center of Economic and Law Studies (CELIOS), Indonesia
Presenter: Tanya Beckett Producer: Vicky Farncombe Researcher: Maeve Schaffer Editor: Tara McDermott Technical Producer: Nicky Edwards Production Management Assistant: Liam Morrey
Image Credit: Dimas Rachmatsyah via Getty Images
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the inquiry from the BBC World Service. I'm Tanya Beckett. One question, four expert witnesses, and an answer. |
| 0:12.0 | Southeast Asia's largest country is six months into an ambitious program to tackle its problems with malnutrition amongst children. Free school meals. |
| 0:24.6 | The initiative led by President Prabhoo Sobiento is part of a much bigger plan to create what he calls |
| 0:31.6 | a golden Indonesia in the next 20 years. The hope is that a century after breaking free from colonial rule, |
| 0:40.6 | Indonesia will become a high-income country. |
| 0:44.1 | And giving the country's young adequate nutrients |
| 0:47.2 | so they help fuel the nation over those next two decades |
| 0:50.6 | is a key part of the plan. |
| 0:53.7 | But the challenge of reaching over 80 million children |
| 0:56.9 | in a population spread over several hundred islands is proving costly, problematic and even |
| 1:03.8 | controversial. This week on the inquiry, we're asking, can Indonesia afford free lunches? |
| 1:15.4 | Part 1, Indonesia's health. |
| 1:21.4 | With such large populations and also diverse culture and also the level of educations in Indonesia. |
| 1:32.0 | It has been a lot of different factors that is very challenging to achieve a nutrition level |
| 1:40.6 | for children and also young people in Indonesia. |
| 1:46.5 | Manutrition amongst children in Indonesia is a considerable problem. |
| 1:51.6 | About one in five are stunted, meaning they're too short for their age, and one in 14 |
| 1:58.2 | are too thin for their height. |
| 2:06.7 | These children are exposed to the risk of curb development and chronic diseases later in life, |
| 2:12.4 | but the difficulties in solving this problem are immense for a number of reasons. |
| 2:35.7 | Hi, my name is Dini Widia Suti. I'm the executive director of Plan Indonesia. We are a development and humanitarian NGO dedicated to advancing children's rights and equality for girls across Indonesia. Indonesia is the world's largest archipelagic country and has the fourth largest population in the world. |
| 2:41.4 | The spread of communities across so many territories means that any distribution of resources is vastly complicated, particularly since many rural communities are not connected by paved roads. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.