Islamabad : NNF meeting was held under the chairmanship of Deputy Chairman Planning Commission Mohammad Jehanzeb Khan. It was attended by Secretary the MoPDSI, Member FS&CC, high level representatives from Federal ministries and provincial P&D and Boards. The country representatives from bilateral agencies, UN, INGOs and other development partners including SUN Networks were present.
The NNF is a High-level nutrition governance forum at the Planning Commission. It provides leadership in harmonizing nutrition programs, coordination and policy planning across the country. Secretary MoPDSI welcomed the participants and showed the governments commitment to address the issue of malnutrition. He emphasized that nutrition is development and development is nutrition and it is central in achieving SDGs. He further added that the government has initiated Pakistan Nutrition Initiative (PANI), a Multi-Sectoral National Nutrition Program to promote healthy dietary practices, prevent and treat wasting and stunting, focus on local causes and local solutions, advocacy, foster public-private partnerships, and priorities early childhood development. He added that this initiative will target 36 heavily affected districts (Balochistan 12, Sindh 10, GB 5, KP 5, Punjab 2, and AJK 2) with high stunting rates, floods, and poverty.
The Chief Nutrition MoPDSI presented the nutrition importance, the nutrition landscape and compliance on the recommendations of previous NNF meeting. He further elaborated on the PANI initiative.
The Member FS&CC Planning Commission Ms. Nadia Rahman stressed upon the significance of multi-sectoral coordination and integration up to the household level. She also mentioned that nutrition development partners may align their resources with PANI. She further added that we may track nutrition investment and map out all the ongoing activities implemented by federal, provincial and other stakeholders. She added that we may conduct a multi-sectoral nutrition survey for updated and comprehensive data. She add that there should be financial tracking of all nutrition-sensitive and specific interventions that are implemented in provinces and at the federal level.
The participants appreciated the government efforts especially PANI for addressing the issue of malnutrition. The partners mentioned that the issue of malnutrition is long standing hence we need to think out of the box by focusing on the underlying determents. They also highlighted the importance of fresh data considering the epidemics such as COVID and floods for effective planning and programming.
In his concluding remarks the DCPC Mohammad Jehanzeb Khan emphasized on the multispectral approach to address the issue of mother and child nutrition. He added that the role of development partners is catalytic, and government must take the responsibility. He showed his concern on some of the nutrition indicators which have worsened such rate of exclusive breast feeding which has no cost. He recommended to have a national nutrition dashboard to track the nutrition indicators. He also added that Early Childhood Development (ECD) lays the foundation for a lifetime of success by nurturing cognitive, social, emotional, and physical growth, shaping resilient and capable individuals.
