![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dailyrapidnews.com\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Sania-outlines-3-points-about-Pakistan-approach-to-malnutrition-rapidnews-dailyrapid-dailyrapidnews.jpg\")
<\/p>\nDr. Sania Nishtar joined the high-level ministerial roundtable with Ministers from around the world as part of expert panel on \u201cFinancing SDG2: Addressing Hunger and Malnutrition in the wake of Covid-19\u201d.<\/p>\n
The roundtable took place virtually at the World Bank Headquarters, during the World Bank Annual Meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the wake of the pandemic, Pakistan is amongst the first few countries that have made a commitment to protect human capital from negative coping strategies, and over a Billion dollars has been committed to accelerate programs for over 70 million households\u201d, said Dr. Nishtar.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
She outlined three points about Pakistan\u2019s current approach to malnutrition using the social protection lens.<\/p>\n
Elaborating nutrition focused agenda of Ehsaas at the panel, Dr. Nishtar shared that firstly, even before the pandemic, malnutrition, particularly stunting was a policy priority; our Prime Minister referred to this during his maiden speech; a high-level council had been constituted and when the government structured its social protection program, Ehsaas, a new nutrition Conditional Cash Transfer program, \u2018Ehsaas Nashonuma\u2019 was made its integral part through which consumption of specialized nutritious food is encouraged for vulnerable women and children.<\/p>\n
She then described the second point that when the pandemic struck, more than 24 million breadwinners risked becoming food insecure.<\/p>\n
As a response the government provided Ehsaas Emergency Cash for around 15 million families.<\/p>\n
97% of the subsistence sum was spent on food averting a major humanitarian catastrophe in our country.<\/p>\n
The successful roll out of this massive national programme showed that it is possible for governments to deliver social protection, and nutrition interventions at scale through digital means.<\/p>\n
Adding further about innovative financing to combat hunger, Dr. Nishtar shared that by forging partnerships with philanthropies who provide meals at scale, a nationwide soup kitchen initiative has been rolled out under Ehsaas at zero cost to the government for daily wage workers who have been disproportionally affected by the crisis.<\/p>\n
Referring to the third point about food prices, which have risen all over the world in the wake of the pandemic, she shared that as a response, a policy shift is currently underway towards targeting of subsidies to benefit the vulnerable since they spend on average ~36% of their expenditure on food (HIES\/PLSM Survey 2018-19).<\/p>\n
Dr. Nishtar then highlighted that the government is structuring this targeted subsidy program digitally using a payment gateway and digital wallets of retailers, while leveraging the outreach of financial institutions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dr. Sania Nishtar joined the high-level ministerial roundtable with Ministers from around the world as<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8031,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan"],"yoast_head":"\n