By Adnan Rafique
ISLAMABAD: Caretaker Federal Minister for Health Dr. Nadeem Jan on Tuesday said there was the highest level of resolve and a strong political will to address the challenge posed by malnutrition in Pakistan. Addressing the global Food Security Summit in London, the minister said that on the whole equation of malnutrition, Pakistan offers a clear vision, firm political will, reasonable capacities, a trained community-level workforce and a whole governance approach to address this issue.
“The Government of Pakistan welcomes the initiative for enhanced global partnership on tackling global under-nutrition issues and finding new ways of working to deliver results.” He expressed gratitude to the British government, Somalian government, UAE government, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Children’s Investment Fund Foundation and other partners for organizing the Global Food Security Summit.
He said that despite some significant progress that Pakistan made in several social sectors, the country is still battling with very high levels of under-nutrition. He added, that one in five children in Pakistan is wasted, while one in ten children is severely wasted, a condition that increases a child’s risk of death by over 10%. Pakistan is also among the countries with the highest burdens of low birth weight babies, with a national average of 22.7%.
The high population growth, rapid urbanization, market price inflation, global crises, and socioeconomic impact of COVID-19, compounded by suboptimal feeding and caring practices are driving child wasting in Pakistan. Dr Nadeem said, “We have deficiencies in supply inflows for turning the tide of this malnutrition in Pakistan 150 million USD per year minimum is required to meet the challenge.” He extended special thanks to Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) for support of USD 10 million. “There are certain lessons from history we must be cognizant of; we propose that the best course forward would be sustainability and continuum of policies, political will, donors will, advocacy coupled with inclusive, innovative, integrated government based programming.” He said that in order to reduce and maintain childhood wasting to at least less than 15% by 2025, for Pakistan, as committed in Global Action Plan to prevent and manage child wasting, a change in strategic shift and approach is required from relying only on the treatment of children with severe wasting to a deliberate action to prevent and early detect wasting among children by adopting a systems approach. Accordingly, the government of Pakistan has taken some concrete actions to address the wasting agenda, and these include a paradigm shift and remodelling program from treatment-centric to preventive, detective and curative-centric. He said that the government is also working on applying the simplified guidelines for wasting management to increase the coverage and early identification of wasting cases, support in enhancing the local capacity to produce ready-to-use
Therapeutic Food (RUTF), unlocking the Nutrition Matching Fund in Punjab and Sindh, and including wasting management in the Conditional Cash Transfer program for the poorest of the poor under BISP Nashonuma Programme. He said that the government of Pakistan is committed to further strengthening the implementation and monitoring of the strategic shift from treatment to prevention of malnutrition, thereby bringing down the caseload of wasting children. Accordingly, necessary additional funding will be allocated that will be channelled towards strengthening the prevention, early detection, and management of wasting, including the local procurement of RUTF.
