Zubair Qureshi
Pakistan National Nutrition Coordination Council (PNNCC) held its maiden meeting on Friday discussed myriads of issues relating with nutrition and observed stakeholders were working in a fragmented manner without coordination.
The meeting attended by six ministers and convened by the Vice Chairperson of the council Dr. Sania Nishtar decided that mapping of nutrition stakeholders in digital observatory style documentation should be developed as a starting point.
Participants also agreed that nutrition is a whole of the government multisectoral agenda with health, social protection, agriculture, fortification, sanitation and water and behavior change and communications interplaying. Participants also underscored the need for strong accountability and clear metrics as a starting point for action.
‘The National Nutrition Survey 2019 is now powered for district level disaggregation of data. We have the capacity to target nutrition pockets of the worst and this level of information will help us to target interventions in specific areas’, said Dr. Sania Nishtar.
“Our definition of nutrition centers on malnutrition in all its forms and hence it is not just under nutrition but also on the over nutrition and obesity ends of the spectrum that we need to focus attention. Both of these co-exist in the same population and in the same areas.
All participan ts agreed that work was underway across all provinces and still there were peculiar nutrition challenges that need to be tackled through a multisectoral approach in a well-coordinated manner.
