Jakarta – The United Nation’s sexual and reproductive health agency (UNFPA), on Monday (13/6), has announced the Indonesia’s National Population and Family Planning Board (BKKBN) as the winner of it’s 2022 UN Population Award.

The Senior Advisor to the Presidential Chief of Staff, dr. Brian Sri Prahastuti has applauded the Award as the global acknowledgment towards the successful works of BKKBN. Furthermore, she praised the family planning field officers and consultants for their unending commitment in providing family planning services, especially for fertile age couples.

“The presence of the family planning field officers and consultants has proved the BKKBN as a strong institutionalized agency that plays a leading role on population issues, raising the quality of family life,” said Brian, Tuesday (13/6).

The UN Population Award has honored individuals and institutions for their outstanding contributions to population, development and reproductive health, since 1983. 

One of the many outstanding results of BKKBN’s demographic initiative is the reduction of the total birth rate (TFR) from 5.6 to 2.2 births per woman from 1970 to 2000. The decline in the birth rate slows the rate of population growth and affects the quality of public services.

According to Brian, Indonesia’s success in suppressing the rate of population growth must be followed with the improvement of the quality of family life.

Further, she added, Indonesia would soon face a demographic bonus. Thus, the agency should not only dwell on the issue of the number of children and the distance between births. It should also talk on the matter of family resilience in various fields; health, economy, children’s education, as well as happiness, nutrition, quality of sanitation, and the environment.

“Stunting or malnutrition should become one of the top problem priorities to be solved,” she said.

Stunting, low height for age, carries long-term development risks and lowers future productivity, hampering the development of future human resources.

President Joko Widodo has put his concern over the matter by launching a childhood stunting policy through Presidential Decree (Perpres) No. 72/2021 on the acceleration of stunting reduction among children under five years. This new policy effectively underpins the National Strategy to Accelerate Stunting Prevention 2018-2024.

“It is indeed not an easy job to reduce the stunting rate to 14 percent in 2024, while it is still at 27.6 percent at the moment. But the government has been very optimistic with BKKBN and their family planning initiatives. The task now seems not to be so difficult to achieve,” said Brian.