November 4, 2025 | 08:17 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Indonesia’s Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Culture Zulkifli Hasan said the success of President Prabowo Subianto’s administration will depend on the smooth implementation of the Free Nutritious Meal (MBG) program, a nationwide initiative to provide daily meals to tens of millions of children and mothers.
Zulkifli, commonly known as Zulhas, emphasized that the government is giving “very serious attention” to the program, which aims to combat malnutrition and support human capital development across the country.
“This meal program is the government’s main and most prioritized initiative. The success of this administration depends on the MBG program,” he said after leading a coordination meeting with cross-ministerial teams at the Coordinating Ministry for Food in Jakarta on Tuesday, November 4, 2025.
Launched as one of President Prabowo’s flagship policies, the MBG program seeks to reach 82.9 million beneficiaries, including school children, toddlers, breastfeeding mothers, and pregnant women, as part of a broader effort to improve public health and education outcomes.
To ensure smooth implementation, Zulkifli said the president has formed a national coordination team comprising 13 ministries and government agencies.
The team is jointly led by the Coordinating Ministry for Food, the Coordinating Ministry for Community Empowerment, and the Coordinating Ministry for Human Development and Culture.
He added that the coordination effort will be supported by a daily execution team under the National Nutrition Agency (BGN), which will hold daily monitoring meetings at the Food Coordinating Ministry’s office.
“There will be daily evaluations because the MBG program is large in scale, fundamental in importance, and comes with significant challenges,” Zulkifli said.
The meeting also discussed a forthcoming Presidential Regulation on MBG Governance, which will define responsibilities and oversight mechanisms at the provincial, district, and city levels.
In addition, the regulation will outline the roles of Village Cooperatives and Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in food procurement for the program.
“It will be clearly regulated later, under a renewed spirit,” Zulkifli said.
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