Tanoto Foundation says local governments are having to piece together funding for services supporting children from birth to age three, weakening efforts to deliver consistent care.
Tanoto Foundation says Indonesia still lacks a clear budget line for services that support children from birth to age three, leaving local governments to piece together funding from existing programmes instead of relying on a dedicated early years allocation. Michael Susanto, the foundation’s head of early childhood education and development, said this gap makes it difficult to build consistent care and stimulation services for the youngest children.
Speaking at the 2026 Asia-Pacific Regional Learning Forum on Early Childhood Development in Jakarta on Wednesday, Susanto said the country has made progress with a national framework for integrated early childhood care, known as PAUD HI, but that the policy is still too broad to solve financing problems on its own. He said the practical challenge is not only policy design but also how to pay for services that are often spread across several government departments.
According to Tanoto Foundation’s education work, the organisation has been trying to address those gaps through partnerships that support early childhood development, stunting reduction and better measurement of children’s progress. The foundation says it has worked with UNICEF to adapt international standards to the Indonesian context and has backed government efforts through grants linked to a World Bank-managed fund for nutrition and early years programming.
The foundation has also argued in earlier reports that early childhood services remain unevenly available across Indonesia, with access and quality differing widely by region. In a separate study with the Asia Philanthropy Circle, it said governments in the region have shown stronger commitment to early childhood development, but local implementation continues to be held back by financing and capacity problems. That wider picture, Tanoto Foundation says, points to the need for local governments to use existing health, family support, parenting and early education budgets more strategically rather than waiting for new funding streams.
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