A two-day international conference, ‘Act For Nutrition: The Emergency We Can No Longer Ignore’, held at Islamabad’s Serena Hotel, concluded on Thursday, with experts calling for food and nutritional security to be recognised as fundamental rights.
The conference aimed to address Pakistan’s persistent nutrition and stunting crisis.
On the first day, experts at the conference warned that more than four in 10 children under five were stunted and malnutrition was costing Pakistan close to $17 billion annually.
They also said that malnutrition was produced by a combination of poor diets, inadequate healthcare, weak water and sanitation services, poverty and other factors, making a multisectoral response essential.
The two-day conference brought together policymakers, international development leaders, health professionals and nutrition experts to confront the burgeoning crisis and build momentum for urgent, coordinated action.
View the full agenda here.
4:55pm - Conference concludes
4:40pm - Malnutrition ‘greatest barrier’ to development: WHO official
Representative of the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Pakistan Dr Dapeng Luo, in his closing remarks, stressed that malnutrition remained the “greatest barrier” to health, development, and opportunities.
He noted that nutrition was “much more than access to food” and further stated that “predictable and solid regulation” was needed as a way forward.
4:30pm - BNP showed nutrition can be integrated into social protection, says WFP official
WFP’s Country Director for Pakistan Anita Hirsch also noted the progress of the Benazir Nashonuma Programme (BNP), which she said had shown that nutrition can be integrated into national social protection.
“As we look ahead, one priority is to sustain those gains, continue to scale up and integrate services for millions of Pakistani women and children,” Hirsch said.
4:22pm - WFP official shares her key takeaways
World Food Programme’s Country Director for Pakistan Anita Hirsch shared her key takeaways from the two-day conference.
“Pakistan continues to face a high level of malnutrition. More than 40pc of children under five are stunted. This means children whose growth and cognitive development are compromised,” Hirsch said.
She continued: “Second takeaway was that timing matters; the first 1,000 days represent a critical window that will have lifelong implications for the potential for children and potential for Pakistan, and that adolescence also matters.”
Hirsch also noted the economic cost of malnutrition, remarking that it remained a barrier to national growth and prosperity. “17bn dollars are lost every year to malnutrition and stunting,” she said.
“My last takeaway was that addressing malnutrition is not just about food alone; it is about health, education, women’s empowerment, behaviour change.
“It takes a village; it is our collective responsibility, and it is also a national emergency and one that we must collectively address.”
4:15pm- Expert calls on govt to recognise food and nutritional security as a fundamental right
Chairperson SUN Movement Dr Irshad Danish also recommended that the government should recognise food and nutritional security as a fundamental right in the Constitution.
“There are some provisions, but nutrition and food security are not fundamental rights,” he said.
He also recommended that nutrition should be institutionalised as a sector and stressed the need for multisectoral coordination.
4:10pm - Pakistan’s nutritional burden must be treated as a national emergency, says expert
Dr Irshad Danish, who is the chairperson of the Scaling Up Nutrition movement, summarising the two-day conference, said that in the discussions held, it was recognised that “scale and severity of Pakistan’s malnutrition burden must be treated as a national emergency and put forward some recommendations”.
Outlining one of the recommendations made, Dr Danish said, “First, we propose and recommend that the government should appoint dedicated nutrition coordinators and focal persons at national and international level”.
4:07pm - Closing session titled ‘Stronger Together — The Pakistan Nutrition Pact’ begins
The final session of the day has begun.
3:45pm - Addressing malnutrition collective responsibility: Sarwat Gillani
Actress Sarwat Gillani said that addressing malnutrition was a collective responsibility.
“It should be portrayed as everyone’s responsibility because only then can it be resolved because it is in every province,” Gillani said.
“So we have to work on this problem collectively,” she added.
3:40pm - Sarwat Gillani stresses use of ‘intelligent marketing’
Actress Sarwat Gilani emphasised the use of “intelligent marketing” in addressing societal issues, including malnutrition.
“Intelligent marketing is the answer to so many of our problems. In this day and age where everything is on a credit card or a mobile phone [..] if we have all the right creative minds along with experts, we can all sit down and come up with a strategic marketing campaign,” she said.
3:30pm - Film mogul highlights importance of radio, PTV in reaching the masses
Satish Anand, the chairman of EverReady Pictures, highlighted the importance of radio and PTV for reaching the masses.
He said that radio was widely listened to by people living in rural areas. He added that PTV could also be effectively used to communicate social issues.
3:20pm - Sarwat Gilani says malnutrition caused by host of factors
Actress Sarwat Gilani, who is also an ambassador for Special Olympics Pakistan and the Indus Hospital and Health Network, said that there had been a lot of “repetition” during the conference as people cited data and statistics.
“If this repetition, can be disseminated on an every day level, it would have a more lasting result,” she said. She said that malnutrition was not a “disease” and was caused by a host of factors.
She also called for focusing on the solution rather than the problem.
3:17pm - Journalist notes lack of focus on nutrition in media
Journalist Zarrar Khuhro termed malnutrition a “silent crisis” and went on to say that there was limited conversation about the issue in the media.
“You will see a press release perhaps [..] but that does not cause a conversation at the household level and [..] if you can’t do that, then you have no hope of societal change”.
“That is what we need, not just top-down change but critical mass at the family level, personal individual level, identifying this issue and seeking solutions and creating what we call a public buy-in,” he said.
3:12pm - Panel discussion on communicating for change begins
A panel discussion on communicating for societal change has now begun.
3:10pm - Official says 1 in 4 children in Punjab suffering from stunted growth
Dr Usman Ali Khan, the programme director of the Punjab Family Planning Programme, said that comparing the surveys from 2018 and 2024 showed progress.
However, despite this improvement, there were 5.5m malnourished children in the province, he said. He said that one in four children in the province suffered from stunted growth.
He said that the province was actively screening women and children that could be suffering from malnutrition and stunting.
3:05pm - Nutritional financing a provincial budgetary question, says Punjab govt official
Punjab government’s special secretary, Aurangzaib Haider Khan, presented three priorities to the forum.
“First, a common nutritional indicator so that provincial data can be compared, rather than merely collected,” Khan said.
Secondly, he called for an “honest recognition of the fiscal architecture [under] the 18th Amendment” and added that nutritional financing was predominantly a provincial budgetary question.
Third, Khan said was that “birth spacing also belongs inside the nutritional agenda, rather than besides it”.
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