Institutional set-up and structure. Established in 2024 by Presidential Decree No. 147 of 2024. It is tasked with overseeing food governance across the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Forestry, the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries, the Ministry of Environment and the Environmental Control Agency, the National Food Agency and the National Nutrition Agency. It also collaborates with the Ministry of Defence, including military agencies, on programmes such as the Food Estate and Food Brigade initiatives.

Mandate and decision-making power. The facilitation of policy coherence across the food system was placed under the Coordinating Ministry's jurisdiction on its establishment. Its role is one of strategic coordination rather than direct policy implementation. Of the three coordinating ministries, it holds the broadest formal mandate: it is the only institution in the mapping with a direct mandate spanning almost all food system sub-functions, from production, processing and distribution through retail and marketing, public and household food environments, and food waste, to financing and overall food system coherence.

The Coordinating Ministry is tasked with the following roles (building blocks):

• Agenda setting: advocacy and dialogue

• Implementation: coordinating policy and programme implementation; coordinating financial resources

• Monitoring and evaluation: monitoring, evaluation and reporting

Who is involved. Six ministries and agencies within its oversight — agriculture, forestry, marine affairs and fisheries, environment (with the Environmental Control Agency), the National Food Agency and the National Nutrition Agency — together with the Ministry of Defence on specific programmes. It shares coordination mandates with the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs on food distribution, financing and food security, and with the Coordinating Ministry for Human Development and Cultural Affairs on food security.

How it works in practice. The Coordinating Ministry convenes the ministries and agencies within its remit to align action across sectors. Its establishment gave food a coordinating ministry of its own for the first time, creating a single point of oversight across a set of mandates previously distributed across the economic affairs and human development portfolios. Because it is newly established, evidence of its operating practice is still emerging: the analysis found that its mandate is broad on paper while its exercise of that mandate through policy instruments had yet to begin.

Strengths

• The broadest food system mandate of any institution in the landscape, spanning nearly all functions from production to consumption, financing and overall coherence — giving it standing to align action across the full system

• Standing as a coordinating ministry in its own right brings a sharper and more visible focus on food than the previous distribution of these mandates across other portfolios

• A concrete example of the multisectoral coordination arrangement that is often recommended internationally and rarely implemented, placing Indonesia among the countries testing this model in practice

Opportunities for improvement

• Clarifying how coordination mandates fit together. Setting out how the Coordinating Ministry's role relates to those of the National Food Agency, the National Nutrition Agency, the other coordinating ministries and the line ministries would reduce overlap and strengthen accountability across the system.

• Extending coordination beyond the current group of ministries and agencies. Bringing the mandates that sit outside the present arrangement — particularly in trade, industry, health and the enterprise portfolios — into a shared coordination process would reach the midstream parts of the food system where policy attention is currently lightest.

• Translating the mandate into instruments. Moving from mandate to practice — through the coordination mechanisms, agreed processes and policy instruments the role provides for — would give the coordination function visible effect across the ministries and agencies it oversees.