Media Coverage Mishal in Media

Daily Balochistan Express: 61% people facing food insecurity in Balochistan

QUETTA: Mishal Pakistan, Australian High Commission and World Food Program briefed the parliamentarians in the Balochistan assembly on the alarming situation in the province.


QUETTA: Mishal Pakistan, Australian High Commission and World Food Program briefed the parliamentarians in the Balochistan assembly on the alarming situation in the province.

The key focus is to capacitate policy makers for a more harmonized mechanism to ensure service delivery to the citizens. The initiative aims to facilitate the knowledge flow among key stakeholders to “Eliminate Hidden Hunger and Nutrition Challenges”.

Speaking on the occasion, Ms.Rahila Hameed Khan Durrani, Speaker Balochistan Assembly said, we thank Mishal Pakistan for collaborating with the Parliamentarians to develop smart policy making to “Eliminate Hidden Hunger” from Balochistan. She further added  “We need to engage institutions, academia and bureaucrats to make it part of the legislation for sustainable development. She said, media can play a crucial role in raising the awareness among the communities and various stakeholders relevant to this important issue for Balochistan.

Mishal Pakistan, the Country Partner Institute of the Global Competitiveness and Benchmarking Network of the World Economic Forum in collaboration with the Standing Committee on Health held a special session to capacitate the Parliamentarians for smart policy making on eliminating hidden hunger and nutrition awareness. The session was held at the Provincial Assembly and attended by the Standing Committee members on health, members of academician and senior journalists.

Dr. Aftab Bhatti, Senior Nutrition Officer with the World Food Program in Balochistan briefed the parliamentarians that 61% population in Balochistan is food insecure, whereas; out of 20 food insecure districts in the country 10 are in Balochistan. The situation in Balochistan is specially critical as 40% children are underweight, additionally 52% are stunted and 16% are wasted. In terms of other demographics 49% women are anemic along with 57% children are anemic.

Amna Sabahat, Program Manager Eliminating Hidden Hunger, while briefing the members of Balochistan parliamentarians said, “We have launched the Smart Policy Making initiative to ensure policy making through data and real time feedback through media. 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 further said that “the adult literacy rate in Baluchistan is 43.6% whereas the young literacy rate lies at 55.9%.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”. (PR)

Source: http://www.bexpress.com.pk/2017/07/httpwp-mep5f0gk-8v0/

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