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World Food Programme high level delegation meets Sindh Chief Minister

Karachi, April 05, 2018 (PPI-OT): Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has said that his government with the assistance of World Food Programme (WFP) and other donor agencies was working hard to resolve the issues of malnutrition and stunting. This he said while talking to the delegation of WFP Executive Director Executive Director in Pakistan Mr. David M. Beasley. His delegation members were Mr David Kaatrud, Regional Director, Bangkok, Mr Finbarr Curran, Country Director, Katrien Ghoos, Deputy Country Director, MNA Ms. Marvi Memon, MNA, Additional DG BISP Federal government Naveed Akbar, Additional DG BISP GOP. The chief minister was assisted by Minister P and D Saeed Ghani, Chief Secretary Rizwan Memon, Chairman P and D Mohammad Waseem and Principal Secretary to CM Sohail Rajput.

The chief minister said that the WFP has a long history of providing humanitarian and development assistance to the Sindh, working closely with government concerned departments, UN agencies and local International NGO partners to respond the emergencies food security and livelihoods needs identified in the province. He added that these include the emergency response activities during the large scale floods of 2010, 2011 and 2012 along with livelihood recovery activities through the Food Assistance for Assets using cash as a modality.

Murad Ali Shah said that as part of its new three-year of operations which began in January 2016, the WFP support the implementation of Food Assistance for Assets (using cash or food as modalities), Nutrition (Community Management of Acute Malnutrition and Stunting Prevention), Disaster Risk Management as well as Capacity Development and Augmentation (CD and A) activities in the province.

Since 2013 WFP has also been implementing nutrition sensitive interventions providing nutrition support to vulnerable communities with programmes, including the Community based Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM), Blanket Supplementary Feeding and Stunting Prevention. Disaster Risk Management (DRM) capacity augmentation activities are also being implemented in the region. In 2015, WFP had assisted 508,120 beneficiaries with $6.1 million in cash and 3670 tons of food in the Sindh.

Chairman P and D Mohammad Waseem briefing the meeting about the programme launched by WFP in Sindh. These programmes are as follows:

Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement: WFP Provided technical assistance to the Sindh government for the SUN Movement, established the provincial SUN Secretariat to facilitate inter-sectoral coordination and policy alignment. For this purpose, WFP has provided human resources and operational support to the P and D Department.

Stunting Prevention: Currently, the Stunting Prevention is being implemented in Thatta and Sujawal districts. The programme targets children in the first 1,000 days of their life. The chief minister was congratulated for success of SUN and Stunting prevention programme which have shown remarkable progress. The malnutrition has come down by 19.6 percent while stunting cases have been controlled by eight percent alone in Thatta. The progress report of Sujawal was compiled.

CMAM: Through the Community Based Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) WFP is covering Moderately Acute Malnourished (MAM) children (6-59 months) and Severely Malnourished PLWS through a Targeted Supplementary Feeding Programme (TSFP) complementing four food insecure districts, Tharparkar, UmerKot, Sanghar and Jamshoro.

Nutrition: Jan-Sep 2016, cure rate for MAM children was 98.94 percent and 95.19 percent for Pregnant and Lactating Women (PLW). 2,153 tons of food distributed through CMAM and 1,061 MT through Stunting Prevention Beneficiaries provided with cloth bag to carry commodities from CMAM site, proven to be a major help to beneficiaries in transferring commodities.

Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said that Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA), Sindh was working better during natural calamities but it concerned staff members need special trainings, capacity building and other support to enable them and the PDMA to meet any emergent situation. On this the WFP and Sindh government agreed to work together for capacity building and other necessary support to PDMA, Sindh.

For more information, contact:
Press Secretary,
Chief Minister House, Sindh
Tel: +92-21-99202019(Ext: 336)
Website: www.cmsindh.gov.pk