Ways to overcome population, nutrition crises proposed

Islamabad : To address Pakistan’s population and nutrition issues, the World Bank Tuesday offered to bring in experts from countries having success in both these areas for sharing of experiences. In this regard, a conference involving policy makers and implementers has tentatively been planned for early 2019.

A consensus to this effect was reached during a meeting between Minister for National Health Services Aamer Mehmood Kiani and Country Director of World Bank Illango here the World Bank campus in Islamabad.

The World Bank has also offered to share analytics on health related issues with the Ministry. It was concluded that work on policies regarding these thematic areas of bilateral interest in light of best practices will be undertaken together with designing and implementation of projects addressing the identified themes.

Setting up achievable targets to measure success will also be mutually negotiated, they agreed. Aamer decided to hold a coordination meeting with Federal and Provincial partners on population and nutrition, and to launch a media campaign to promote healthy living.

Although the recent PHDS shows an improvement with stunting rates at 37.6%, there is still a severe disparity in nutrition status across the provinces.

Aamer said Pakistan’s population is still very young, with 62% under age of 30 years, and human capital is a driving factor in economic growth. Pakistan is also facing a crisis in terms of malnutrition that is amongst the worst in the world and is losing about 3% of its GDP to stunting every year.

Earlier on, while welcoming the Minister, Illango reiterated commitment to extend all possible support to Pakistan in various development projects, as it has been doing in the past.