Significance of private sector in food value chain highlighted

LAHORE:A seminar on ‘Empowering SMEs with Sustainable Business Solutions’ highlighted the significance of the private sector in the food value chain and discussed the Enabling Business to Advance Nutrition Index (EBANI).

The seminar jointly organised by the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Scaling up Nutrition (SUN) Business Network Pakistan with the support of Pakistan SUN Movement. Speakers said EBANI is an innovative advocacy tool designed by GAIN and SBN to enable the private sector to contribute to advancing positive nutrition outcomes.

The purpose of the seminar was to promote sustainable solutions for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and provide a platform for stakeholders to share the findings of a study recently conducted by GAIN and SBN, in partnership with Entrepreneurship Development and Advisory Services (EDAS), on mapping, connecting, and strengthening relevant SMEs and entrepreneur support organisations (ESOs).

Senior Policy Adviser from GAIN and the Head of Provincial Office UN World Food Programme (WFP) presented and highlighted and shared the evolving global approaches and the developments during the meeting. Portfolio leads from GAIN shared success stories of SBN in developing partnerships of local businesses with global businesses. Programme Policy Officer SUN Movement explained the multi-sectoral governance structure for nutrition and highlighted how successfully we integrated nutrition, including Early Childhood Development, School Nutrition and School meal into the key policy documents and programmes.

LCCI President Kashif Anwar said that focus should be shifted to the SME sector of Pakistan as these are considered the engine of economic growth in both developed and developing countries.

The SBN Women and Youth Empowerment Strategy outline was shared by the Africa Regional Manager, Gender & Youth Technical Lead. The Co-chair SBN and Country Coordinator mentioned that SBN Pakistan is the private sector arm of the SUN Movement in Pakistan, which supports businesses to produce and increase the access and availability of affordable, safe, and nutritious foods to consumers, especially low-income consumers. In Pakistan, SBN advocates the role of business in addressing nutrition at the country level.

SBN’s coordination and advocacy platform can play a key role in aligning the stakeholders on a single platform to advocate and ensure the provision of affordable, safe and nutritious foods to the vulnerable populations. The Senior Vice President Women Chamber of Commerce committed for all the support from the chamber members and mentioned the importance of curriculum review at school level, awareness campaigns and the private sector pledge to support the “zero-hunger” initiative in coordination with the government.