Jakarta – The Indonesian economy may be showing signs of recovery from the financial crisis two years ago. However, still left behind in the turmoil created by that crisis are tens of millions of poor Indonesians.

In fact, the problems are still so severe, that the United Nations has agreed to extend by 18 months an emergency relief programme to deliver food.

Workers are returning to Jakarta's building projects, which had been left vacant since the economic meltdown, but the number of jobless Indonesians, who are unable to support their families, is still alarming. An estimated 17 million people do not have enough to eat.

The residents of Cipinang Besar receive cheap rice subsidised by the United Nations. This is the only way many can afford to feed their families. For some locals, it is so difficult to get food that they cannot even return to their village.

In a shanty town, people are reduced to scavenging, or borrowing from money lenders to sustain their daily lives, because there are just no jobs.

The impact of the food crisis is perhaps worst on the children. They are forced to drop out of school, to buy food for the family. In a makeshift school, there is little prospect of success.

Seventy percent of pupils leave to find work or are too sick to continue. According to the UN, half of all Indonesian children are malnourished.

Said Catherine Bertini, Director, World Food Programme: "Their parents don't have access to food and that means those children can't grow, and then, sometimes then are much more susceptible to disease and then they die." And, despite international efforts, across Indonesia, 450 pre-school children die every day from malnutrition.