By Minahil Makhdoom
ISLAMABAD: Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Social Protection and Poverty Alleviation, Dr. Sania Nishtar on Wednesday announced that the first-ever ‘Ehsaas Nash-o-Numa’ program to address the issue of stunted growth faced by 40 percent of the children in Pakistan would formally launch on August 13.
In a news briefing, she said Prime Minister Imran Khan would formally launch the ‘Ehsaas Nash-o-Numa’ program along with her by visiting the Ehsaas Nash-o-Numa Center in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Khyber tribal district. Dr. Nishtar said the issue of stunting among children in Pakistan had always been among the top priorities of the prime minister as in his initial address to the nation soon after assuming he responsibilities, he showed the CT scan of a child affected by stunting and highlighted the gross issue.
She said around 40 percent of children in Pakistan suffered from stunting due to malnutrition and other reasons. The highest incidence of stunting disease in Pakistan in terms of provinces and regions was in the tribal districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, Gilgit-Baltistan and Sindh, she added. Ehsaas Nash-o-Numa program has been launched to prevent stunting due to malnutrition in children under the age of two years, pregnant women and lactating mothers.The deserving Nash-o-Numa beneficiary women will be given a quarterly stipend including Rs 2,000 for girls and Rs 1,500 for boys besides providing healthy food sachet. She said the program being implemented with the support of World Food program is the result of a year and a half of comprehensive planning, technical consultation and public-private partnership. In the first phase, a total of 33 development centers are being set up in nine districts across the country including Khyber, Upper Dir, Bagh, Ghizer, Hunza, Kharmang, Kharan, Badin and Rajanpur under the program. All the 33 development centers of the first phase would be made functional by the end of August, she said.
