Evaluating the Impact of Village Fund Allocation for Health on Human Capital Investment through Stunting Reduction Programs in Lamongan Regency

This study looks at whether Village Fund money spent on health reduced stunting in villages in Lamongan Regency, Indonesia. It uses village-level data for 2023-2024 and compares villages that received the intervention with those that did not. Villages that received it had about 1.2 percentage points lower stunting prevalence. A second analysis found only a marginal link between the Village Fund and stunting. Posyandu activity, supplementary feeding, child immunisation and basic-service access were not statistically significant.

Key points

• Propensity Score Matching showed a statistically significant reduction in stunting prevalence of about 1.2 percentage points in treated villages compared with non-treated villages.
• The OLS results show a negative but only marginally significant association between the Village Fund intervention and stunting prevalence.
• Posyandu activity, supplementary feeding, child immunisation and basic-service access were statistically insignificant.
• The authors highlight the importance of targeted and integrated village-level interventions.

Limitations

Only an abstract is available, so details on sample size, how the intervention was defined, and how well the matching worked are not known. The data cover two years at village level, so the findings do not show effects on individual children.