Act for Nutrition conference: Govt adviser says nutrition needs to be reclassified as a capital expenditure

The second day of a two-day international conference, ‘Act For Nutrition: The Emergency We Can No Longer Ignore’, is being held at Islamabad’s Serena Hotel. The conference aims 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 is bringing 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. 10: 24am – Govt adviser says nutrition needs to be reclassified as a capital expenditure Adnan Pasha Siddiqui, the adviser to the minister of finance, said that nutrition needed to be reclassified as a capital expenditure rather than as an expense. “So this single accounting decision suppresses the investment narrative permanently. .. these are fundamentals flaws we need to correct, ” he said. 10: 17am – Govt adviser says lack of investment in nutrition hurts Pakistan’s GDP Adnan Pasha Siddiqui, the adviser to the minister of finance, said that population and resources is a “collective failure of capital investment”. “We are reflecting everything nutrition-related as a health expenditure. .. every rupee that is withheld from a pregnant women’s diet is a deduction from the country’s gross domestic product in the future, ” he said. He said that in the country, nutrition was divided across several sectors. Siddiqui said that the annual loss from malnutrition was $17bn. He said that in South Asia, labour productivity was suppressed because of nutrition. “And it is a structural liability to our sovereign credit profile, ” he said. 10: 08am – World Bank official says nutrition is viewed through ‘a human capital lens’ Sara Shahzad, the senior health specialist from the World Bank, said that the group had 10-year country partnership framework with the government of Pakistan focused on six priority areas, one of which was stunting reduction. “So the way the World Bank looks at population stabilisation and nutrition, specifically the stunting agenda, is through a human capital lens, ” she said. Talking about stunting, she said that 30-40pc of it occurred before a child was born. “So, the first 1, 000 days are absolutely critical but also the adolescence period, ” she said. 9: 58am – Expert highlights ‘experimentation’ in Pakistan’s population planning Dr Ali Mir, the country director for the Population Council, said that there was always a tendency in Pakistan of “making the same mistakes again and again”. Talking about Pakistan’s previous population reforms, he highlighted wavering political commitment and policy inconsistency. “We never explicitly had a population policy till 2002. It was always couched in development planning, ” he said. He said that due to this, Pakistan was constantly “experimenting”. Dr Mir said that now things were moving in the right direction, with the establishment of the Population Council. 9: 55am – Doctor says nutrition is ‘not an isolated event’ Dr Saima Hamid, the programme and research lead at the Population Council, said that Pakistan’s population growth rate is at 2. 55pc. She said that in 28 years, the country’s population would double, putting a huge burden on resources. “This clearly is a challenge of not just the quantity but also the quality of diet. We need to ensure that diverse nutrition reaches those most vulnerable, ” she said. She also said that Pakistan’s domestic food security was on the decline, adding that “nutrition is not just an isolated event”. “One sector isn’t really responsible. .. there is a clear intersection of nutrition, food security, health, purchasing power, ” she said. 9: 52am – Session on population growth’s impact on family well-being begins The session on population growth’s impact on family well-being has now begun. 9: 50am – 2nd day of conference begins The second day of the conference begins with a short film titled Leaky Guts from the Aga Khan University.

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