A two-day international conference, ‘Act For Nutrition: The Emergency We Can No Longer Ignore’, is being held at Islamabad’s Serena Hotel on Pakistan’s persistent nutrition and stunting crisis.
With more than 40 per cent of children under five stunted, a maternal mortality rate of 155 deaths per 100,000 live births, and malnutrition costing Pakistan upwards of $17 billion annually, the country stands at a crossroads: continue on the current trajectory and surrender an entire generation’s potential, or choose a different future.
The two-day conference is bringing together policymakers, international development leaders, health professionals and nutrition experts to confront the burgeoning crisis and build momentum for urgent, coordinated action.
The focus of discussions will be on moving the national conversation beyond statistics towards practical, measurable interventions that can improve nutrition outcomes and protect Pakistan’s human capital and future generations.
View the full agenda here.
3:45pm - Nutrition investment reduced absenteeism rate in Bangladesh, says official
Project Manager at the Workforce Nutrition GM Reza Sumon, joining the conference through video conference from Bangladesh, discussed nutrition investments for the workforce.
He said that in Bangladesh’s government sector, the anaemia rate within the workforce was at 51.9pc. However, after interventions via funding for fortified rice, oils and iron and folic acid tablets, the anaemia rate dropped to 32pc, Sumon said, which helped convince the private sector to make similar investments in nutrition.
He said after the private sector invested $10m in nutrition in the past year, absenteeism in workplaces has reduced from 70pc to 40pc.
3:40pm - EBM executive shares details on a fortified biscuits initiative
Head of Corporate Communications & Sustainability at English Biscuit Manufacturers (EBM) Attiyah Inaam Khan shared details of an initiative launched by the company in which fortified biscuits were provided to mothers to address malnutrition.
“We tracked them for five years, and mothers who received biscuits showed great iron levels during pregnancy, and children born under the study showed stronger cognitive development,” she recalled.
“It is not about margins but more about whether there is evidence on the ground and whether the intervention can be scalable,” she added.
“Government can also play a very important lever here: tax credit for fortification in products and reduce the import duty on fortification,” she added.
3:36pm - Session on mobilising private capital and partnerships begins
A panel discussion on mobilising private capital and partnerships has begun.
3:12pm - ADB views malnutrition as an economic issue, working with BISP, says official
Senior Project Officer at Asian Development Bank (ADB) Mansoor Ali Masood said the bank was looking at malnutrition through an economic lens rather than viewing it solely as a health issue.
“Hence, we are trying to mainstream it through social protection, education, agriculture and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services,” he said, adding that ADB was supporting the Benazir Nashonuma Programme and had allocated around half of a $960m fund to address stunting.
“ADB is supporting the expansion of BNP, helping BISP in expanding the awareness of mothers who are better informed and can take better decisions for their children and ensure dietary diversity.”
3:07pm - ‘Nutrition is part of human capital’
The Dean of Research at Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE) Dr Shujaat Farooq, said that the economic cost of malnutrition was “too much”.
Citing statistics, he said 40pc of children in the country are facing stunting while 25 million children are out of school. He added that 75pc of children in schools were unable to learn proficiently due to malnutrition.
“Nutrition is part of human capital,” Farooq said.
3:00pm - No multi-sectoral nutrition programmes in the past decade: Planning ministry official
Chief of nutrition at the planning ministry, Dr Nazeer Ahmed, said in the past “one to two decades, there had been no major nutrition programme implemented in the provinces, except the Benazir Nashonuma Programme”.
“We have the policies in the four provinces, and nutrition strategies [..] But on the ground, we do not have any multi-sectoral programmes implemented,” he said.
2:55pm - Nutrition not often framed as GDP statistic: Gates Foundation official
Gates Foundation Senior Programme Officer of Development Policy and Finance Dr Ammar Malik said that according to World Bank statistics, for every dollar a government invested in nutrition, it could get up to $23 back in the form of economic benefits.
Questioning why such a high return on investment was still ignored, Malik said one of the issues was that nutrition investments were long-term, with returns becoming obvious years or decades later.
He added another issue was that nutrition is seen as a standalone topic in such discussions, instead of framing it as a gross domestic product statistic.
“If I were to say to you that Pakistan is losing 3pc of its GDP because of lack of investment in nutrition, that is a much stronger argument for economic policymakers than it is to talk about nutrition,” he said.
2:50pm - Gates Foundation official says Pakistan’s crisis is a ‘balance sheet problem’
Gates Foundation’s Dr Ammar Malik, who serves as the senior programme officer of development policy and finance, said the nutrition problem in Pakistan was a “balance sheet problem”.
“The government of Pakistan can either now decide to spend more on nutrition today through our budgets, or we can pay the price of this lack of investment in the form of lost gross domestic product over the next several years or even decades,” he said.
2:45pm — ‘Nutrition has few dedicated champions’
Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition Executive Director Lawrence Haddad noted that another reason nutrition was underfunded was a lack of dedicated efforts towards the issue.
“Why is this? Well, because malnutrition is multi-sectoral. It is the interaction of poor diet, poor water, poor sanitation, poor healthcare, and poor care in general, and so each of these areas has its own ministry.”
“There is no ministry of nutrition,” he added.
2:42pm — Expert says malnutrition underfunded despite ‘catastrophic consequences’
The session on investing in nutrition began with a video note by Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition Executive Director Lawrence Haddad, who pointed out that malnutrition remained underfunded “despite its catastrophic impact”.
“Forty five per cent of children’s deaths under three worldwide are due to malnutrition,” Haddad noted, adding that less than 1pc of international aid was spent on malnutrition.
“It is quite invisible in many ways,” he added.
2:30pm — Conference resumes after lunch break
1:50pm - Lunch break
The conference will resume at 2:30pm.
1:40pm- WHO official says ‘no bigger risk than lack of action’
Ellen Thom, the deputy representative for the World Health Organisation Pakistan warned that “there was no bigger risk than the lack of action” in addressing malnutrition.
“As we speak, before I finish answering, [..] in the next three minutes, at least 14 children will have died across the world from causes related to maternal and child malnutrition,” Thom said, adding that such deaths were preventable and “we cannot afford not to take action”.
She also noted that Pakistan was suffering an annual economic loss of $17bn due to stunting and malnutrition.
1:34pm - WFP official says malnutrition not just driven by poverty
Thomas Conan, the deputy country director for the World Food Programme, said that malnutrition was not just driven by poverty.
“It is also directly influenced and fed by poor access to services … health services and water and sanitation services,” he said.
1:15pm - Expert calls for focusing on adolescent nutrition
Food security adviser on nutrition and social protection at GIZ Pakistan, Dr Faiza Wahab, raised the alarm at the “missing adolescent middle” during conversations about malnutrition.
She said that nutrition discourse had been focused on the first 1,000 days of a child, but she stressed, “we are really missing the middle, which is between childhood and motherhood”.
“Focusing on adolescent nutrition is not to prepare them for motherhood, but it is also a window where the investment really returns in the form of human capital development,” she said.
She explained that during adolescent years, young girls were vulnerable to anaemia and iron deficiencies due to “rapid growth, hormonal changes and menstruation”.
“If she is not empowered, she cannot participate in education, and she has less cognitive capabilities,” Dr Wahab said.
1:10pm - WHO official stresses need for integrating social protection programmes with health services
Ellen Thom, the deputy representative for the World Health Organisation Pakistan, said integrating social protection with existing health and nutrition services is important.
She said that evidence showed that doing so and strengthening integrated primary healthcare was an effective way of reaching vulnerable families and delivering high-impact nutrition interventions.
1:02pm - WFP official says nutrition is not just about food
Thomas Conan, the deputy country director for the World Food Programme, said that nutrition was not only about food.
“It’s not only about access to food. It is about a healthy diet, the capacity to ensure multi-sectoral intervention and collaboration among us,” he said.
He said that it was also necessary to ensure access to a more healthy diet and the design of the social protection was nutrition-sensitive,” he said.
12:50pm - BISP official talks about Nashonuma programme
BISP Director General Dr Asim Ijaz spoke about the Benazir Nashonuma Programme (BNP), which he said had added a “nutritional and health layer” to the existing BISP registry.
He stressed that there exists a 1,000-day window for a child’s development, during which “irreversible damage can occur”.
“This is why BISP changed its thinking in 2019,” he said. He said that the recognition was then realised in the Nashonuma pilot launch in 2020, which was then phased out country-wide in 2021.
“Nashonuma itself is not a separate bureaucracy but layered onto existing platforms,” he said, explaining that BISP’s registry was now carrying a nutritional and health layer.
“So the idea was to have one beneficiary record with multiple beneficial layers,” he said.
12:42pm - ‘We can no longer afford to look away,’ BISP chairperson says
Senator Rubina Khalid, the chairperson of Benazir Income Support Programme, said in her keynote address that the responsibility lay not just with providing financial assistance, but with also helping families move from vulnerability towards dignity.
“We have gathered here today … because we can no longer afford to look away,” she said. She said that more than 40pc of children under five in Pakistan were stunted, while malnutrition placed a huge burden on the economy.
“Stunting is not only a health issue. It is a human capital issue, an economic issue and a challenge to Pakistan’s future,” she said. She said that the country lacked integration of the programmes it had to address these issues.
At the end of her address, she said: “We must work together so that every child in Pakistan has the opportunity to grow, learn and reach their full potential. Because every child we protect from malnutrition is not simply a life protected, it is the future protected, a family strengthened and a stronger Pakistan secured.”
12:40pm: Session on integrating nutrition into social protection systems begins
A session on integrating nutrition into social protection systems begins.
12:30pm - Sri Lankan doctor calls for understanding child growth trajectory in South Asia
Dr Rannan-Eliya, in answer to a question, pointed out that the child growth trajectory in South Asia was not the same as the rest of the world.
“We have sort of misunderstood the problem,” he remarked, adding: “There is no uniformity in child growth, and because we use a single growth standard, we partly misdiagnose what is going on”.
“In my sense, Sri Lankan kids need to be better nourished but there is a limit to what we can do and we need to understand that,” he said. He noted that a similar understanding was also being realised in India.
“So we need to do more as South and South East Asian countries, and it’s something that needs better investigation, and it is leading to a misunderstanding of what the problem is.”
12:13pm - Expert says nutrition an issue of human capital, economic growth
Dr Irshad Danish, the co-chair of the Global Nutrition Report Stakeholder Group, said that from his experience, Pakistan had low allocation, fragmented spending and implementation challenges.
“If we need $10 to feed malnourished children, we are spending only $2,” he said. He added that Pakistan was losing $17bn annually due to malnutrition.
He said that this also resulted in poor education outcomes, children with cognitive issues and lower workforce productivity.
“So, nutrition is not just a health issue. It is an issue of human capital and economic growth,” he said. He said that the cost of malnutrition was far greater than the cost of prevention.
“We need to move from fragmented spending towards strategic investment, and from hidden allocations to transparent budgets,” he said.
12:00pm - Doctor stresses importance of lady health workers
Co-chair of the Global Nutrition Report Stakeholder Group Dr Irshad Danish stressed the significance of the lady health workers programme.
“It was one of the strongest community based health workers model and its coverage was around 60pc, with over 100,000 lady health workers,” he said, adding that the workers enjoyed community ownership.
“These workers were often the first link of access for healthcare [..] many independent evaluation where these health workers were available, there was better health knowledge and better access to essential services.”
11:46am - Sri Lankan official explains how country scaled health systems
Dr Ravi Rannan-Eliya, the executive director of Sri Lanka’s Institute of Health Policy, said that 100 years ago, the South Asian country had worse health outcomes than the rest of the region.
“We were the sick man of South Asia, but now we have the best health plan. How did that happen? One simple reason I always tell people was the ballot box … the British decided to give self-rule,” he said.
He said that as a consequence, there was a pressure to give free education and to expand health services. He said that voters prioritised access to care over all other things.
11:42am - Session on South and South-East Asia’s current realities
The session on South and South-East Asia’s current realities has now begun.
11:30am- Scaling Up Nutrition movement official highlights its progress
Asia Regional Representative of the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement Dr Srikanth Eadara spoke about the objectives of the movement, which he said was comprised of 67 countries and was a country-led global nutrition advocacy platform.
“It unites different stakeholders coming from civil society, private sector, donors, UN, agencies and other entities as well as youth to end malnutrition,” he said, adding that it was launched in 2013 to “ ensure a coordinated multisectoral and multi-stakeholder action to address malnutrition in all its forms”.
“We are currently in the fourth phase of the SUN Movement, and it is based on the current challenges and current context of nutrition, which shows that, yes, there is progress; however, the progress is slow and uneven,” he noted.
Dr Eadara also spoke of the issues surrounding nutrition finance, highlighting that the cost of malnutrition was “estimated to be around 5 to 11pc of the total GDPs of Asia and Africa”.
He warned that recent funding cuts, particularly in the World Health Organisation have “threatened to reverse progress” made on nutrition.
“The reduction will also result in increased hardships and deaths, with a lot of implications for public health and economic growth and stability,” he said.
11:25am - Doctor says nutrition the ‘outcome of many systems’
Dr Aminah Jahangir, the global lead for health and nutrition at the Aga Khan Foundation, said that nutrition is the outcome of many systems and cannot be solved by one. She said that climate was already shaping the conditions in which children grow.
“Our experience suggests that the outcomes are better where health services, food systems and community institutions have worked around the same household over many years. It reminds us that progress is achievable in our own context,” she said.
11:20am - Social protection can address malnutrition, says WFP official
The WFP official spoke of one of the three priorities the organisation held for its work in South Asia was advocacy for policy engagement.
She explained, “this is a continuous effort to work with governments from South Asia to highlight how social protection can be more than a safety net and more than a poverty reduction instrument”.
Hobbs said that with the right intentions, social protection held promise to improve nutrition, diets and address malnutrition.
“This is because social protection already reaches the families that are the most vulnerable and those are the families that face the highest challenges,” she added.
11:12am: WFP official says over 80pc of stunted children come from middle-income countries
Asia Pacific Regional Nutrition Adviser for the World Food Programme Nora Hobbs, in her address, spoke of the geographical realities of stunting, stating that the majority of children affected by stunting are from middle-income countries.
“Over 80pc of the world’s stunted children are in middle-income countries,” she said.
The WFP official continued: “This means that low-income countries may have the highest rate and prevalence, but because middle-income countries have such a large population, it may have higher numbers of stunted children.”
She stressed that the facts highlighted that stunting was a result of “inequalities within countries”.
11:05am - Expert highlights need for coordinated response
Dr Giacomo Zanello, an associate professor of Food Economics and Health at the University of Reading, said that neither food nor the health systems could solve malnutrition alone.
“Progress requires coordinated action across food systems, health systems and social protection. Countries that built integrated approaches before crisis struck, were able to keep essential services running through disruption,” he said.
“Integration cannot be improvised during a crisis. It has to be done in advance,” he said.
11:00am - Expert says 2.6bn people cannot afford a healthy diet
Dr Giacomo Zanello, an associate professor of Food Economics and Health at the University of Reading, presented a report on global nutrition.
“Around the world, progress on nutrition is under increasing pressure. Climate shocks, conflict, economic uncertainty … are affecting food and health systems,” he said.
He said that the 2026 global nutrition report focused on how countries can build healthy diets, through stronger integration of food and health systems while building resilience.
“Today, 2.6 billion cannot afford a healthy diet,” he said. He said that extreme weather, rising food prices and pressure on health services were arriving alongside conflict and instability, which was affecting food and health systems.
10:55am - Session on global and regional realities begins
The session on global and regional realities has now begun.
10:52am - UN official says nutrition should not be activated only after a crisis
Pernille Ironside, the United Nations’ resident coordinator in Pakistan, said that communities must be at the heart of the response to malnutrition and stunting.
“Investing in front line workers and community-based platforms and listening to communities themselves can strengthen the uptake of essential services and practices, reinforce local ownership and ensure that women and children most at risk are reached,” she said.
She said that Pakistan knew better than most how quickly climate disasters, economic shocks and displacement can undermine years of development programmes.
“Nutrition, therefore, cannot be something we activate only after a crisis. It needs to be built into the preparedness, into the anticipatory action and the shock responsive systems so that vulnerable families are identified beforehand,” she said.
10:30am - WHO chief says malnutrition one of the greatest barriers to health, development and opportunity
World Health Organisation Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in a recorded message, said that malnutrition remained one of the greatest barriers to health, development and opportunity.
“Every year, it contributes to millions of preventable deaths,” he said. He said that the problem was not a lack of knowledge, rather a lack of action.
10:20am - Minister says equity begins in the womb
Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal said that the Pakistan of 2047 is being built today.
“It is being built in the health of our mothers. It is being built in the nutrition of our infants. It is being built in our homes and communities and it is being built in the developing minds and bodies of our youngest children,” he said.
“We all have to work as a whole,” he said, calling for the conference to spur action.
“Let this be our commitment: every child nourished is protected, every child given a fair start brings Pakistan one step closer to the future we seek,” he said.
10:10am - Minister says investment in nutrition is not charity
“Pakistan cannot win the economic race of the 21st century if millions of children begin the race of life several steps behind than others. There can be no knowledge economy without developing the capacity of the human brain. There can be no productivity revolution without healthy and capable workers. There can be no genuine equality if inequality begins before a child is even born,” said Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal.
“Therefore, investment in nutrition is not charity, it is economic policy,” he said.
10:03am - Minister says first 5 years of a child’s life critical
Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal said that human resource development had not been prioritised in the past. He appreciated the initiative by DawnMedia Group to address the nutrition crisis and called on civil society to take up social issues.
“90 per cent of a children’s brain develops by the age of five .. so the first five years in the life of a child are the most critical,” he said.
“If we fail to develop that human infrastructure during the earliest years of life, we weaken every other investment we subsequently make,” he said.
“That is why stunting cannot remain merely a statistic. For the planning minister, it is a national development challenge,” he said.
9:57am - Planning minister says quality of human resource critical for countries
In his remarks, Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal, the chief guest, conveyed Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s firm commitment to addressing malnutrition and stunting as a national development priority.
He said that as the planning minister, he spent much of his time dealing with the architecture of Pakistan’s development.
“We discuss motorways, energy, dams and digital networks. All of these are essential, but there is one investment more fundamental than all others: the investment in human development,” he said.
“Ultimately it is humans and people who build nations. Therefore, the quality of human resource is critical for any country,” he said.
9:55am - Dawn CEO says nutrition crisis does not ‘look the same’ across the country
Dawn CEO Nazafreen Saigol Lakhani said the nutrition crisis did not “look the same in Tharparkar as it does in Chitral or in southern Punjab”, adding that the response could not be the same either.
“You will hear the economics of financing nutrition, the science of why children fail to grow even when food is technically available, and, I hope, the voices of the women and the mothers who carry the heaviest share of this burden and are so rarely asked to speak about it,” she said.
“With all those who have a role to play gathered around the same table, we have an opportunity to move from recognition of the scale of the problem towards urgent, coordinated and measurable action — action that can improve maternal and child nutrition, strengthen Pakistan’s human capital, and give future generations the opportunity to grow, learn and thrive,” she said.
“That is what this conference ultimately aims to achieve: to build a shared understanding of what needs to be done, and to begin charting a clear and practical roadmap for how we get there,” she added.
9:53am - Dawn CEO says nutrition not a problem for health ministry to solve alone
Dawn CEO Nazafreen Saigol Lakhani said that Pakistan loses close to $17 billion a year to the consequences of malnutrition, “more than what we typically borrow from the International Monetary Fund in any given year”.
“We spend enormous energy negotiating that borrowing. We spend comparatively little energy addressing a loss nearly as large, happening quietly, inside our own households,” she said.
“So this conference starts from a simple premise: nutrition is not a problem for a health ministry to solve alone. It sits at the intersection of health, agriculture, water, education, social protection, our economy and ultimately, our national security,” she added.
She said that countries such as Bangladesh, Peru, and Rwanda had demonstrated that stunting can be dramatically reduced within a generation, but “only when a nation decides, at the highest levels, that the future of its children is important enough to make it a collective priority”.
9:52am - Dawn CEO calls stunting crisis ‘a national emergency’
In her welcome remarks, Dawn CEO Nazafreen Saigol Lakhani said that four out of every ten children under the age of five in Pakistan were stunted.
“These are children whose physical growth and cognitive development may be permanently compromised – often before they have spoken their first words, entered a classroom or had the slightest chance to even dream of their own future,” she said.
“And when this is the reality for four out of every ten children in our country, we cannot merely call it a health problem. It is a national emergency – and a profound failure of our collective priorities,” she said.
9:45am - Conference begins
The conference has begun with the playing of the national anthem and the recitation of the Holy Quran.
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