Pakistan has the 3rd highest percentage of stunted children in the world

Pakistan has the 3rd highest percentage of stunted children in the world

Sindh has 49.8% stunting rate amongst all the provinces

31 July 2017 – Karachi,PK – Media needs to become part of the development agenda in Pakistan, to ensure transparency and accountability for quality service delivery to the citizens, this was concluded at the session on Smart Policy Making on Eliminating Hidden Hunger, today in Karachi. The session was attended by senior journalists, field reporters, media and development professionals, representatives of civil society and academia.

Mishal Pakistan, the Country Partner Institute of the Global Competitiveness and Benchmarking Network of the World Economic Forum with support from the Australian High Commission, Islamabad held a special session for the journalists working on health public policy.

The data from Mishal's research shows that the total number of households below the nutritious diet thresholds in Sindh 70.8%, Punjab 65.5%, while the numbers for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are67.4%, and 83.4% for Balochistan.

MubashirZaidi, senior journalist and anchor person Dawn News said, “Mishal Pakistan has launched the Smart Policy Making initiative to ensure the accountability of policy makers through media. The journalists need such session to understand the issues lying on the surface and to grasp better understanding as to how to report that to the public. Today, fact based reporting should be done to fill the required knowledge gap in the public and political spheres.”

He further said that “The awareness of nutrient deficiency level of Iron and Iodine in Pakistan remains highest especially in the urban community with up-to 42.0% and 61.6% respectively. Women and children remain the ultimate victims of these deficiencies resulting in high mortality rates”.

NidaKarim, Program Specialist Eliminating Hidden Hungerat Mishal Pakistan, while briefing the members of the journalists’ community said, “The Smart Policy Making initiative of Mishal is to bring media at the core of the development agenda in Pakistan, the initiative will ensure policy making through data and real time feedback. This will alsomakepolicy makers accountable to the people. This would not only help the parliamentarians to improve service delivery to the citizens but would also contribute in improving Pakistan's competitiveness on global footing, while creating accountability through media. She said, although the costs for Nutrition per capita of PKR 2,061/per month is lowest in Punjab as compared to Sindh PKR 2,306, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa PKR 2,152 and Balochistan at PKR 2,415.The amount is still out of reach of average citizens’ buying power.

Nida Karim further said, “Mishal Pakistan along with the Australian High Commission is engaging policy makers and journalists across Pakistan to understand the dynamics of malnutrition in the country. Today's session with the journalists focused on strengthening the delivery platforms for a better andfact-based coverage of malnutrition stats inPunjab.”