Indonesia’s $28 Billion Experiment: Prabowo’s Free Meals Program Tests the Limits of Ambition
Elementary schoolchildren having a meal provided by the Free Nutritious Meals program in Depok, West Java, Indonesia, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. Photo: AP News
During his third and ultimately successful presidential campaign, Prabowo Subianto promised what would be the centerpiece of his government: the Free Nutritious Meals (MBG) program to provide free lunches for schoolchildren and pregnant women. The program aims to tackle chronic malnutrition amongst Indonesian children, where 19.8% are stunted and 7.8% are severely underweight. Stunting in children affects long-term health, brain development, schooling outcomes, and lifetime earnings. Mr. Prabowo has set aside $28 billion for the program from 2025 to the end of his term in 2029. But less than a year into the rollout, the program has been marred by controversy.
Unrealistic timelines, a lack of regulatory framework, and poor logistical management have led to the food poisoning of 6,000 people by September 2025, with one expert estimating the true number to be over 13,000 as of Oct. 19, 2025. Schoolchildren have reported finding maggots, glass shards, and expired sauce in their food. In Ketapang, West Kalimantan, students were served fried shark despite the risk of mercury contamination. Even the grandchildren of ex-ministers weren’t exempt from this contamination.
The president has also tied this nutrition program to his other big campaign promise: to boost Indonesia’s GDP growth to 8%. He claims that the MBG program has created 1.5 million jobs and boosted local economies. He also cited a Rockefeller Institute study that suggests for every $1 spent on the program, the return on investment can be anywhere from $5 to $37 in the long run.
President Prabowo Subianto (center) alongside Coordinating Minister for Economics Airlangga Hartarto (left) and Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati (right), Jakarta, Indonesia, Tuesday, April 8, 2025. Photo: AP News
To implement this ambitious project, the government has allocated $4 billion this year and is offsetting costs by slashing funding in other areas like health, education and public works, firing thousands of contractors, and pushing the deficit to a 2 decade high (excluding the pandemic). All the while, the economy is facing a slowdown caused by US tariffs and a weak job market where more and more people are underemployed and pushed into the informal sector.
While some have expressed approval for the program’s provision of free meals and new jobs, critics have condemned the government’s approach as reckless. The budget cuts required to fund the MBG raises the question of whether the program is a stimulus at all. Experts contacted by the New York Times expressed concerns about the government’s focus, with one saying the government is “in denial about the economy" and another calling it a “financial time bomb.” The latter, Bhima Yudhistira also points to teachers’ compensation and transportation investment as more pressing needs. Furthermore, there are signs of a manufacturing slowdown, mass layoffs, waning purchasing power, tight fiscal constraints, and a shrinking middle class all cast doubt on the government’s priorities.
President Prabowo has characterized the poisonings as anomalies that translate to 0.00017% of all cases while managing to feed 30 million recipients. However, a spate of negative headlines and anger from parents have put the government on the defensive. Nanik Deyang, the deputy head of the National Nutrition Agency (BGN), gave a tearful apology to affected parents and announced the closure of 40 kitchens that violated safety standards. The BGN signalled that they will delay the full implementation of the program to feed 82.9 million recipients by 2 months to February 2026 although this is still very ambitious as it will mean more than doubling the program’s beneficiaries in just four months.
Despite the program’s setbacks, Mr. Prabowo remains defiant. In a recent speech he gave to the National University of the Republic of Indonesia on Oct. 18, he responded to recent criticism—“the program has a 99.99% success rate. How can anyone call something that’s 99.99% successful a failure?”
Tags: Indonesia | Economy | Southeast Asia | Public Health | Nutrition