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ECDG

Preventing Undernutrition through Multisectoral Initiatives in Pakistan: A Landscape Analysis

This report provides a landscape analysis as an initial step to develop a multisectoral nutrition intervention in Pakistan. The nutritional situation in Pakistan is a cause for much concern and hitherto intransigent to change. Although the proportion of underweight children under five years has declined from 38% to 32% between 2001 and 2011. During the same period, stunting has increased from 37% to 44%, as has wasting, from 13% to 15%. Furthermore, a quarter of all newborn infants have low birth weight, which is unsurprising considering that 18% of women were also underweight. In some districts, the proportion of underweight women exceeds one-third. Pakistan is also a country in economic transition where 19.3% of women of reproductive age are overweight, and 9.5% are obese with a marked difference between urban (15.7%) and rural (6.5%) areas. Nutrition of adolescents is a cause for much concern and largely ignored; as many as 22% are stunted while 17% are obese or overweight.