Impact In Numbers
- In its preliminary statistics, Health Heroes Nutrihunt application under the Food Investigator Games project reached more than 157,000 game users (50,000 adolescents between the age of 13 to 19 years old).
- Around 280 adolescents were trained in the peer trainers program.
Key Insights
- Using innovative approaches to incite behavior change - explore different options depending on the context. For GAIN, the emo-demo was utilized in its rural area mother education while gamification is used in its food investigator game program targeted at youth groups.
- The role of data - GAIN’s Food System Dashboard program leverages on data to identify an area’s food system typology and tailor solutions accordingly.
Impact Interview is our initiative where we explore the stories of changemakers and the initiatives they have developed to support sustainable development in Indonesia. This time, we spoke with Agnes Mallipu (Bu Agnes), Country Director of GAIN Indonesia.
Impact Interview is our initiative where we explore the stories of changemakers and the initiatives they have developed to support sustainable development in Indonesia. This time, we spoke with Agnes Mallipu (Bu Agnes), Country Director of GAIN Indonesia.
Hi Bu Agnes, can you tell us more about GAIN Indonesia and what is the problem that your organization actually aims to tackle?
So first of all , we’ll start with a quick introduction – a little bit about Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (also known as GAIN in short). GAIN is a Swiss based foundation launched at the United Nation in 2002 to tackle the human suffering caused by malnutrition.
We work with governments, businesses and civil societies to transform the food system so that they deliver more nutritious foods for all people and especially the most vulnerable groups.
In Indonesia we have already supported the government of Indonesia since 2010 through technical assistance and finally we established our offices in Indonesia based in Jakarta.
We started a cooperation agreement with Indonesia government’s Ministry of Health since 2014 up to now, with the objective to improve the nutrition status of the community.
You mentioned both the food system and improving nutrition. Could you explain what the food system is and why it is particularly important in the context of Indonesia?
When we refer to the food system, we mean all the components involved from production to consumption. This is often described as “from farm to fork,” encompassing the entire food system.
However, discussions about the food system sometimes focus only on the production aspect. In reality, the food system includes distribution, processing, marketing, and how consumers use and consume the food.
Indonesia really has to pay attention towards its own food system because we know that this food system is also influenced by climate, and also can influence the climate itself.
Indonesia is the fourth most populous country. On one hand, we have already experienced significant climate impacts on food sustainability. On the other, we are still grappling with nutritional challenges.
Approximately 20% of children in Indonesia suffer from stunting, and anemia is prevalent among adolescents, particularly adolescent girls and women of reproductive age. Additionally, there is a growing number of obesity cases, leading to what is often referred to as the “triple burden” or “double burden plus hidden hunger.”
These major nutritional issues highlight the need to rethink our food system.
Could you provide more details about your programs and how they contribute to addressing Indonesia's nutritional issues? Additionally, who are the primary targets of these programs?
As I mentioned earlier, in Indonesia, we have an MoU with the Ministry of Health aimed at improving community nutrition. This year, we are focusing on enhancing youth nutrition through education and creating an enabling environment.
One of the projects under our education program is the Food Investigator game. We developed an app called Health Heroes Nutrihunt as part of this initiative. This app allows users to scan barcodes on food or beverage product packaging to obtain nutritional information. The Food Investigator game consists of three components, with one component specifically designed to increase adolescents’ awareness and understanding of the nutritional content of the food they consume.
We also want to make it easier for adolescents to get information about the food they consume. Another aspect of this educational effort involves training adolescents so they can advocate for healthier food options.
Our previous experience with the Adolescent Nutrition Program, which began in 2017, revealed that adolescents find it challenging to change their diets or snacking habits due to the prevalence of unhealthy food options.
This highlighted the need to change the food environment for adolescents. They can advocate and demand healthier options themselves.
To support this, we developed a nutrition app that allows users to scan barcodes on packaged food products. This reveals the product’s nutritional information in an easy-to-understand format, eliminating the need to decipher complex nutrition facts on packaging.
Additionally, we are collaborating with the government to strengthen policies related to food package labeling, such as those managed by BPOM, to better address the nutritional needs in Indonesia.
The final component involves working with retailers to encourage them to offer healthier options. Adolescents are also part of this advocacy, encouraging local retail shops and school canteens to provide healthier choices.
These are the main components and activities of the program related to the Food Investigator game and the Food System Dashboard.
You also mentioned focusing on women and other vulnerable groups in rural areas. What are the specific nutritional challenges faced by these target groups?
At GAIN, we always prioritize vulnerable groups because they face greater challenges in meeting their needs and improving their nutritional status.
For example, in the rural areas of East Java, we implemented the Baduta project using emotional demonstrations (emo-demos) to drive behavior change. Our formative research revealed that while East Java has fertile land and easy access to food, education is a significant issue. Villagers often follow traditional child nutrition practices passed down through generations, which can contradict modern scientific understanding.
One such practice is the belief that solid foods, like bananas, can be given to a baby just seven days after birth. To address this misconception, we need to provide appropriate education. However, simply conveying knowledge—telling them what is right or wrong according to doctors and experts—is often ineffective.
We use the emo-demo approach, an innovative method that goes beyond theory to trigger emotional responses. Instead of just explaining concepts, we use analogies and demonstrations. For example, we show a marble-sized object to represent a baby’s stomach and a large banana to illustrate how feeding such a large piece of food to a baby is impossible. This visual and emotional demonstration helps break down misconceptions.
Additionally, access to health facilities in rural areas is a known challenge, but urban areas have their own set of unique challenges as well.
What is the nutrition challenge in those urban areas?
In urban areas, there are different challenges, particularly for low-income communities. We know that a healthier diet is expensive, making it difficult to access high-quality fruits, vegetables, and meat. Low-income urban residents often live in small spaces with no land to grow their own food.
As a result, they typically access low-quality, nutrient-poor food that is affordable and filling, but not necessarily nutritious.
While these communities may easily access information, much of it is dominated by influential corporate advertising. In our program development, we strive to provide essential nutritional information, but we are constantly competing with the business sector, which aims to sell their products.
How do you think events like climate change and COVID-19 affected the nutrition challenges?
These events only confirm what we already know: our food system is fragile. Disruptions in logistics and commodity supply chains lead to increased prices. For example, the price of soybeans has risen because we still rely on imports to produce our tempeh.
This underscores the importance of governments, communities, and partners working together to strengthen the food system in each country.
Additionally, the impact of climate change is evident. We’ve seen a significant rise in rice prices in recent weeks due to an unsuccessful harvest, highlighting the urgency of addressing these issues.
How important is the role of technology in solving nutrition problems?
The pandemic accelerated the adoption of technology faster than we anticipated.
For example, when developing the Food Investigator game, we started with research that revealed 75-76% of urban adults own smartphones and that there are nearly 44 million gamers in Indonesia. We saw the potential to use gaming as an entry point to develop our application.
With the Food Investigator game, users scan food items before buying to learn about their nutritional profiles. The game uses gamification, awarding points for scanning registered food products. The more they scan, the more points they earn – products with low nutritional scores result in fewer points.
Could you provide an example of how a program implemented by GAIN has successfully addressed the issue you're working on? What are the specific impact data and numbers?
The impact evaluation for the Food Investigator game is still in progress, but we do have some preliminary results that we’re happy to share.
So far, we have reached over 157,000 game users and exposed 50,000 adolescents, aged 13 to 19, to our social campaigns. Additionally, approximately 280 adolescents have been trained as peer trainers to visit schools.
Beyond quantitative data, we also have testimonial videos from adolescents sharing their experiences with the application, which we consider a significant indicator of the program’s impact and a valuable method for evaluating its results.
How can people support your efforts to address malnutrition problems in Indonesia. What types of support are you seeking?
As an organization, we warmly welcome anyone interested in supporting our program activities, especially in Indonesia. We are also eager to collaborate with others who wish to adopt and implement our programs in their own regions. Due to limited resources, we can only focus on certain areas at the moment, hence why we need partners to scale this efforts. For instance,we are currently working in three provinces.
If people want to learn more about GAIN and support the organization, where can they find you?
Learn more about GAIN by clicking their social links below
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