Food security dialogue: Set differences aside, work to implement laws

MPs unite to hike efforts to tackle malnutrition

ISLAMABAD: With malnutrition continuing to be one of the major issues for Pakistan with about 67 per cent of households unable to afford a nutritious diet, lawmakers called for setting aside their differences to work on the issue.

This was stated by Cecilia Garzon, the head of nutrition at the World Food Programme (WFP) Pakistan at a national dialogue held on Friday at a local hotel.

While explaining the human impact of malnutrition, she said that “by the year 2030, out of 34 million children less than five years of age, approximately 15 million children (nearly half) will be stunted, 5 million will be wasted and 21 million will be anaemic.

The national dialogue was organised by Scaling Up Nutrition Civil Society Alliance Pakistan (SUNCSAP) and Micronutrient Initiative (MI) to discuss the role of parliamentarians in implementing Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 - which aims to end hunger and all forms of malnutrition by 2030.

Garzon further said that the role of parliamentarians was crucial to addressing malnutrition through policy and decision making.

“Nutrition should be the top priority and actions need to be implemented that are required in the short, medium and long-term,” she said.

Dr Naseer Nizamani, secretary SUNCSAP, said that Pakistan was “facing a malnutrition crisis that is amongst the worst in the world and has not improved for decades.”

He urged an urgent remedy of this situation to safeguard the country’s future development and prosperity.

“It’s a simple fact that nearly half of all children in Pakistan are malnourished, and this undermines their mental and physical growth, as well as the country’s prospects,” Dr Nizamani said.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Deputy Speaker Dr Meher Taj Roghani said that they had comprehensive nutrition strategies and other laws, but the political commitment was required to implement these laws.

Punjab MPA Saira Iftikhar said that the Punjab government had adopted a multi-sectoral nutrition strategy and was now developing a stunting reduction programme for 11 affected districts of the province.

MNA Dr Ramesh Kumar, who is also a member of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Health, was of the view that “we should work together to address the issue of malnutrition keeping away political differences.”

Balochistan’s Health Minister Rehmat Saleh Baloch was of the view that domestic resources need to be allocated towards this goal.

“We appreciate the assistance of donors and development partners, however, we have to allocate domestic financial resources for nutrition,” he said, adding that his provincial government intends to expand the Balochistan Nutrition Programme  to non-covered districts.

Dr Abdul Baseer Achakzai, director of nutrition at the Ministry of National Health Services, the economic consequences emerging from current prevalence, as documented in NNS (2011) and PDHS (2013), is total Rs796.7 million annually, or around three per cent of Pakistan’s Gross Domestic Product.

“We have to invest in nutrition if we want to avoid the demographic nightmare,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 1^st, 2017.