Despite the fact that every year more than 2.6 million children lose their lives throughout the world due to malnutrition, it cannot receive due attention and investment as other causes of child mortality like diarrhea and pneumonia did. In Pakistan, it accounts for 35 percent of under-five mortality.
This was showed in a report compiled by ‘Save the Children’ titled ‘A Life Free From Hunger: Tackling Child Malnutrition’. The launching ceremony of global nutrition advocacy strategy and report was held here on Wednesday at the National Library of Pakistan. The same advocacy strategy and report has also been launched in 24 other countries.
According to the findings of report, Pakistan together with Bangladesh, India, Nigeria and Peru is among the top countries that have more than half of the world’s malnourished children population. “After a year of soaring food prices, 38 percent of surveyed Pakistani families claim to have been forced to cut back on food. One in five parents (22 percent) complained that their children did not have enough food to eat,” the report said.
It was pointed out in the report that recent economic shocks, large-scale emergencies and sharp rise in the prices of food made accessing nutritious diet increasingly difficult for the poorest households. Widespread flooding has destroyed crops and livelihoods, contributing further to increased prices. Consequently, nationally 58 percent of households are considered food insecure, Sindh being the worst affected with 72 percent of the population being food insecure while overall various estimates put 24-40 percent population living below the poverty line.
The report also showed that rising food prices and malnutrition are putting future global progress on child mortality at risk. This trend is especially alarming in Asia, where more than a third of children are stunted, which account for almost 100 million of the global total. India holds the highest rate of stunting amongst children at a shocking 48 percent.
“Pakistan is not far with 43.6 percent children officially reported stunted. Save the Children warns that if no concerted action is taken, Pakistan will have the highest percentage of stunted children population over the next 15 years,” the report said, adding, in fact the stunting rate in Pakistan had not decreased but actually grew by almost 50 percent in the last 10 years in Pakistan (The 2001-2002 National Nutrition Survey-NNS, reported stunting rate at 31 percent, whereas the NNS report in 2011 shows it has alarmingly risen to 43.6 percent).
Nutrition expert Dr Qudisa said if we wanted to change the situation, we will need to increase coordination in developing and implementing a coherent nutrition strategy. “The federal and provincial governments, international community and all other stakeholders need to react to this crisis now, otherwise the future of millions of Pakistani children will be at stake,” she said.
The representative of ‘Save the Children’ made several recommendations to get rid of the said curse. They recommended that provincial governments should develop plans to integrate the nutrition into their health strategy and annual development plans and allocate adequate funding to ensure implementation of minimum package of direct nutrition interventions. They asked the government to expand the role for female health workers to carry out assessment and response to severe malnutrition at community level, adding that provincial governments should also expand efforts to fortify staple foods with key nutrients, as well as setting up implementation and monitoring mechanisms to establish laws aimed at ensuring healthy feeding practices.
