DawnMedia summit confronts Pakistan’s nutrition crisis

A two-day international conference in Islamabad is bringing together policymakers, international development leaders, health professionals and nutrition experts to confront Pakistan’s persistent nutrition and child-stunting crisis.

Organized under the title “Act For Nutrition: The Emergency We Can No Longer Ignore,” the summit will focus on the linked forces driving malnutrition. Its agenda includes poverty, maternal and child health, feeding practices, social protection, water and sanitation, climate vulnerability, financing and governance.

Dawn CEO Nazafreen Saigol-Lakhani said, “Four out of every ten children under the age of five in Pakistan are stunted… We lose close to 17 billion dollars a year to the consequences of malnutrition, more than what we typically borrow from the IMF in any given year.”

She said the conference is intended to bring together the people who set policy, fund nutrition programmes and work on the issue. The summit seeks to build momentum for urgent, coordinated action on a crisis that affects children and carries a major economic cost for Pakistan.

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Four out of every ten children under the age of five in Pakistan are stunted… We lose close to 17 billion dollars a year to the consequences of malnutrition, more than what we typically borrow from the IMF in any given year.