Joint efforts, sustained political will key to combating malnutrition

Consultative meeting held to address nutrition issue in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Parliamentary Secretary on Health Dr Nausheen Hamid on Wednesday urged the private and public sector to work together to eliminate malnutrition from the country.

She was addressing the consultative meeting with parliamentarians and SDGs task force members organised by the parliamentary task force on SDGs with the collaboration of Scaling up Nutrition Civil Society Alliance Pakistan (SUNCSA Pakistan) and Nutrition International.

While highlighting the role of legislators, she said that "it is time that we work together to utilise policy and legislation for effective implementation."

Dr Hamid added that the objective of the meeting was to discuss the role of parliamentarians in addressing the malnutrition challenges in Pakistan. The meeting was also aimed at chalking out a strategy and a way forward to combat malnutrition through policy and implementation through the parliament.

Sharing the objective of the meeting, SUNCSA Nutrition International Country Director Dr Shabina Raza said that sustained political will is a must for improving the malnutrition situation and parliamentarians are the key catalysts for bringing about this change, she added. She highlighted the role of parliamentarians in ending malnutrition in the country and briefly shared SUNCSA's successful engagement with the parliamentarians and political leaders.

She expressed hope that the discussion in the meeting will help identify specific directions and help establish a parliamentary oversight forum for nutrition. Briefing on the nutrition situation, SUNCSA Pakistan Coordinator Aaliya Habib shared that nutrition is directly linked to 12 of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

She added that malnutrition adversely affects human physical and mental development while 37% of Pakistanis are food insecure (NNS 2018).

Pakistan, she said, has the third-highest proportion of stunted children in the world with four out of ten children under five-years-of-age — around 40% — are stunted while 18% suffer from wasting.

More than half — 57% — of adolescent girls in Pakistan are anaemic, she added.

In a discursive session, the parliamentarians suggested useful ways to improve the nutrition situation. It was agreed that nutrition needed to be embedded in different sectors like education, agriculture, climate change, social protection so effective improvement can be seen.

They ensured their continued support for the cause of nutrition in Pakistan.

Ministry of Planning Development and Reform’s Nutrition Chief Aslam Shaheen highlighted the government's initiatives to combat malnutrition in the country.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 10^th, 2020.