Wednesday (14/12/16) ago, PUSKAPA announced its partnership with SurveyMETER, a non-governmental research institute that designs, plans, and implements high-quality research studies to provide insight into the factors that influence public policy and its sustainability. Santi Kusumaningrum, PUSKAPA’s co-director, signed the memorandum of understanding with SurveyMETER’s Research Director Firman Witoelar.

“This partnership with SurveyMETER means a great deal for PUSKAPA,” said Kusumaningrum. “Their expertise in managing large-scale, multi-year data collection will enable us to embark upon a whole new level of research operations and apply more rigor in our work. With this collaboration, we hope that data around child wellbeing becomes more and more adequate, resources may be allocated more efficiently, and this will allow millions of Indonesian children to reach their developmental potential successfully.”

In their first project as partners, PUSKAPA and SurveyMETER are establishing a longitudinal study, together with the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture, on the long-term effects of early childhood adversity on healthy development. This study, which is the first of its kind in Indonesia, will also investigate the individual, family, community, environmental, and systems factors that enable children and their family to overcome adversity.

Almost everyone agrees that the wellbeing of millions of Indonesian children today will shape the country’s tomorrow, and that early childhood is a critical period in shaping wellbeing across a person’s life course. Wise investments in young children (and their families) are therefore foundational to a healthy, productive, and economically prosperous Indonesia.

Recognizing these facts, the Government has put programs and policies in place to improve children’s healthy development. In order to determine which programs are most effective over the long-term, policy makers need sufficient scientific evidence, which is what the partnership aims to achieve.

Adversities are unfortunately depriving a large number of children from opportunities to break the cycle of poverty, and those included. Unfortunately, children around Indonesia face a number of adversities, from malnutrition and stunting, and poor health, to insufficient access to safe and clean water and sanitation, inequitable resources for learning, and violence.

“PUSKAPA shares SurveyMETER’s belief in the power of accurate and reliable data for designing programs and policies that work. By having this longitudinal study, we can address childhood adversities more effectively,” said Witoelar.

Source: http://puskapa.org/activities-impact/PUSKAPA-and-SurveyMETER-Partner-to-Improve-Childrens-Wellbeing/