Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Poverty Alleviation
and Social Protection, Dr. Sania Nishtar Thursday emphasized that transforming our food systems should be central to our efforts for achieving Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.
Dr. Nishtar w
as keynoting the two high-level international events hosted by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU)
and World Food Programme (WFP).
Dr. Nishtar presented Pakistan’s perspective on nut
rition centred social protection operations
and said, “Nut
rition is embedded in the Ehsaas strategy post- COVID. The pandemic has shown that it is possible to place nut
rition at the heart of poverty alleviation objectives”.
She further emphasized that Ehsaas aims to promote equalities, which amongst other things centers on human capital development, of which healthy diet is a core component. Nut
rition, therefore, is a very important part of Ehsaas framework
and the programme looks at it holistically.
The theme of IPU’s high-level parliamentary meeting was “Transforming food systems for health, equity,
and sustainability”.
Alongside Dr. Nishtar, other eminent speakers were- Gerda Verburg, UN Assistant Secretary-General
and SUN Movement Coordinator; Agnes Kalibata, UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy to the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit; QU Dongyu, Director-General, FAO.
The meeting identified entry points for parliamentary action to ensure the production, processing, distribution
and consumption of food responds to health, equity
and sustainability imperatives.
The outcomes of the meeting informe
d the preparatory process of the UN Food Systems Summit. The IPU is the global organization of
national parliaments, with 179 Member Parliaments out of the 193 countries in the world.
Earlier, World Food Programmes (WFP) hosted a side event for Executive Board members
and partners that talked about WFP’s support to
national social protection, as a way of reaching Zero Hunger.
A number of partners were invited to speak about their perspectives on WFP’s work including Germany’s BMZ, Sweden’s Sida,
and the World Bank. From Pakistan, Dr. Sania Nishtar highlighte
d the central role of Ehsaas in tackling nut
rition.
Outlining Ehsaas’ social protection role in post-COVID context, Dr. Nishtar shared that Ehsaas Nashonuma is a conditional cash transfer program aimed at tackling stunting among children under two years of age, along with pregnant
and lactating mothers.
In the first phase, 50 Ehsaas Nashonuma Centers have been opened across 14 most stunted districts of Pakistan.
Also, predicated on the improved nut
rition outcomes of poor families, the National poverty graduation initiative of Ehsaas has an emphasis on asset transfers of goats
and chicken
and a kitchen gardening initiative to help low-income families to supplement vegetables
and fruits intake.
Further, she said that soup kitchen
and truck kitchen initiatives for labourers are significantly contributing to the nut
rition outcomes of underprivileged labour class.
The side event familiarized member states with how WFP is contributing to
national social protection
and supporting governments to achieve their social protection objectives.