Sindh’s 70 percent people underfed

Despite being an agricultural province, Sindh is the poorest and the most food-deprived province of the country with 70 percent of its total population (estimated at 35 million) facing food insecurity, according to the National Nutrition Survey (NNS) 2011.
The national survey reveals that the women, especially mothers, and children are the worst sufferers of the food insecurity in the province, which contributes 70 percent to the country’s total tax collection revenue and 34 percent towards gross domestic product.
Due to lack of food, 51 percent of the women population and 52 percent pregnant women suffer from acute anaemia. The worsened food insecurity has caused 73 percent of the population to suffer from malnutrition and around half of the children in Sindh are malnourished.
Health experts and Sindh Nutrition Cell officials have termed the survey “more than alarming” and urged the government departments and international donors to work together for overcoming the problem.
The Aga Khan University (AKU) in collaboration with United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) carried out the NNS 2011. The nutrition survey has been conducted after a decade as the last one was done in 2001.
The survey reveals that little has changed over the last decade in terms of core maternal and childhood nutrition indicators in the province. Not only food insecurity, but the NNS 2011 report also went on to add that other indicators of basic healthcare are also worse than average.
The survey report also states that a large number of people in Sindh are without access to fresh drinking water while children under five years of age are suffering from abdominal diseases and diarrhoea because of consuming contaminated water.
The ceremony titled “Dissemination of National Nutrition Survey 2011” to announce the results of the survey was held at a local hotel on Tuesday.
The event was also attended by Sindh Health Minister Dr Sagheer Ahmed, Health Secretary Hashim Raza Zaidi, government officials and representatives of UNICEF, World Food Programme (WFP), Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), World Health Organisation (WHO) and other donor agencies including United States Assistance for International Development (USAID), AusAID and United Kingdom’s Department For International Development (DFID).
Disclosing the details of different indicators of the survey, AKU Professor Sajid Soofi said that in absence of coordination between different government programmes running at different levels to overcome food insecurity, no significant results were seen.
“In the last ten years since the last survey, no improvement has been witnessed in the nutrition status of mothers and children in Sindh, despite several government programmes in place in the province,” he said.
Prof Soofi was of the view that due to the floods last year and this season’s heavy monsoon downpours, a large population in the province was displaced and are facing acute food shortage.
Terming the data of the national survey “more than alarming”, Sindh Nutrition Cell Manager Dr Salma Kausar said malnutrition, especially among women, pregnant women and children, is the worst. “It is not the sole responsibility of the provincial health department, and we need multidimensional approach with help from different departments, including social welfare and agriculture, to end this important issue,” she said.
Talking about the reasons behind increased malnutrition, Kausar said among other reasons low ratio of literacy among mothers and poverty were the most important. “Internationally, malnutrition of 15 percent population in a region is supposed to be an alarming situation; whereas, in Sindh over 30 percent of the population is underfed, which is unacceptable,” she said.
Speaking on the occasion, the provincial health minister termed the national survey result as “ground realities”. “During the past two years, Pakistan including Sindh went through the worst disasters in its history, including floods and monsoon rains; thereby, increasing food insecurity in the province,” he said.
“We are running several programmes on nutrition and immunisation but not getting the [desired] results. There are several other reasons but the major cause of the failure of these projects is malnutrition,” Ahmed said. “For achieving the target next time, we are planning to include the Population Welfare Department and other government department in the process.”
UNICEF’s health specialist Dr Asif Farrukhi said the UN, including UNICEF, are working along with Sindh government to overcome the problem of malnutrition in the province.