Malnutrition down by 19.6pc, stunting by 8pc in Thatta: report

A report presented during a meeting at the Chief Minister House shows malnutrition in District Thatta has been reduced by 19.6 per cent and stunting cases by eight per cent.

Talking to a World Food Programme (WFP) delegation that called on him on Thursday, CM Syed Murad Ali Shah said his Sindh government, with the assistance of the WFP and other donor agencies, is working hard to resolve the issues of malnutrition and stunting.

Shah said the WFP has a long history of providing humanitarian and developmental assistance to the province, working closely with government departments, UN agencies and local and international NGOs to respond to the emergencies of food security and livelihoods needs.

He said that as part of its new three years of operations that began in January 2016, the WFP supports implementation of Food Assistance for Assets (using cash or food as modalities) as well as nutrition, disaster risk management and capacity development & augmentation activities in the province.

Since 2013 the WFP has also been implementing nutrition-sensitive interventions, providing nutrition support to vulnerable communities with different programmes, including the community-based management of acute malnutrition (CMAM), blanket supplementary feeding and stunting prevention. In 2015 the WFP had assisted 508,120 beneficiaries with $6.1 million in cash and 3,670 tonnes of food in Sindh.

Planning & Development Chairman Mohammad Waseem briefed the meeting on the programmes launched by the WFP in Sindh. The WFP provided technical assistance to the Sindh government for the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement established by the provincial SUN Secretariat to facilitate inter-sectoral coordination & policy alignment.

As for stunting prevention, the programme is currently being implemented in Thatta and Sujawal districts. The programme targets children in the first 1,000 days of their respective lives.

The CM was congratulated for the success of the SUN Movement and the stunting prevention programme that have shown remarkable progress. According to Thatta’s report, malnutrition has come down by 19.6 per cent and stunting cases by eight per cent in the district. The progress report of Sujawal is still being compiled.