Hundreds of thousands of children in Indonesia are growing taller and heavier thanks to the government’s rice subsidy program, which ensures better nutrition despite flaws in the scheme.

The government started RASKIN—rice for the poor—in 1998 to help poor and near-poor families cope with high food prices in the wake of the Asian financial crisis.

Under the program, currently the largest in-kind subsidy scheme in Indonesia, eligible households across the country receive subsidized rice.

Rice is a staple food, and accounts for nearly a quarter of the average monthly expenditure of poor households in Indonesia.

The program is expected to fulfill 39.5% of poor households’ rice needs.

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Read the report

https://www.adb.org/publications/kind-transfer-and-child-development-evidence-indonesia

About the authors

Bihong Huang is an ADBI research fellow

Prachi Gupta was an ADBI research associate when the work was published.

Know more about ADBI’s work on Indonesia

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