INVESTASI DI BIDANG GIZI

Albiner Siagian
The time has come to treat childhood stunting as a
development and an economic emergency. “How will
countries compete in what will certainly be a more
digitalized global economy in the future if a third or more
of their children are stunted? Our failure to make the right
investments in early childhood development is condemning
millions of children to lives of exclusion. We can’t promise
to equalize development outcomes, but we can insist on
equalizing opportunity.”

World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim.

 Poverty affects health: Theory
1. Poor cannot buy health care
– Cannot afford to prevent a disease before it
occurs (vaccinations)
– Doctor visit for diagnosis
– Drugs to treat the problem
2. Poor more likely to be malnourished
– Can’t afford food or fertilizer to grow food
• Lack of food and variety
– Immune system weak
• Susceptible to diseases
 Poverty affects health: Theory
3. Lack of income to buy drugs so
pharmaceutical companies do not invest
drug development for specialize diseases
(i.e. malaria)
– Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation supports
research on diseases that mainly affect the poor in
the South
4. Poor are more likely to live far away from
doctors and hospitals
– Transportation costs are large
– Poor more likely to go untreated
– Certainly holds for rural poor, may not hold for
urban poor in all countries
– Use mobile health clinics and foot doctors to reach
the poor in rural areas
 Poverty affects health: Theory
5. Poor less likely to be educated
Many studies have shown the more educated
mothers (literacy) have healthier children
• Educated mother understands sanitation better
(wash hands using soap, drink clean water)
• Can read so knows how to make and use ORT
(Oral Rehydration Therapy)
• Knows not to use rusty razor or scissors when
cutting umbilical cord—neonatal tetanus
6. Poor and uneducated girls less likely to
refuse sex and more likely have risky sex
leaving them vulnerable to AIDS
 Poverty affects health: Evidence

• There has recently been causal evidence of

the link between income and health
• Duflo 2003 and Case 2001:
 Study of the effect of increasing the amount and
coverage of the social pension program in South
Africa for the elderly black population found
that income transfers also led to nutritional
improvements among girls.
 Health poverty trap

• Low income tends to cause poor health and

poor health in turn causes low income.

• Policy must therefore address both health

and poverty simultaneously.
Apa itu Ekonomi Gizi?
Tiga jalan yang melaluinya, kurang gizi
berdampak pada kerugian ekonomi: