Steering committee holds meeting for the approval of Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Strategy Punjab

Lahore: At P&D Department under the chairmanship of P&D Board Irfan Elahi, steering committee meeting had been convened for the approval of Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Strategy Punjab. In which Secretary Health Jawad Rafique Malik, Program Director, Policy and Strategy Planning Unit,  Ali Bahadur Qazi, DG Health Punjab, Dr. Zahid Pervaiz, Dr. Zahida Sarwar, Fakhar Gulzar and other sector members such as Education, Agriculture, Social Welfare, Water and Sanitation, Food, Health, development partners and INGOs participated.

Secretary Health gave brief overview of the strategy, how it was evolved and come up from series of technical working group meetings, steering committee meetings and sectoral specific working group’s discussion and efforts of all the stakeholders in the preparation of this strategy. Chairman P&D Board and Secretary Health appreciated this task which will bring prosperity and healthy status in Punjab. PD, PSPU gave the brief background and summary of the strategy and elaborated the role of Nutrition in our lives. It is well established that through improve and proper nutrition, we can enhance our life in terms of development, cognitive, GDP and future growth. It was mentioned that through proper functioning and successful completion of this strategy, we can reduce stunting from 39% to 20%, wasting 14% to 10%, underweight 30% to 10% and maternal anemia from 50% to 20% in Punjab by 2020.

At the end Chairman P&D emphasis that strategy should be come up with operational/action plans as soon as possible that we can reduce the malnutrition status in province as its approval is already delayed.

All the development partners and INGOs such as UNICEF, WFP, WHO, Save the Children, GAIN, Micronutrient Initiative and others express their views and contribution towards its operational plan and future activities, all were on same line that we can reduce malnutrition by comprehensive and strong commitment such as today activity.