PESHAWAR: Speakers at a consultative meeting here on Thursday stressed the need for joint efforts all stakeholders to deal with the issue of malnutrition in the country.

The meeting was organised under the aegis of Intercooperation, an international organisation, in collaboration with Scaling Up Nutrition-Civil Society Alliance (SUN-CSA) on implementation of nutrition strategy of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Munawar Khan Khattal(, representative of Intercorporation, Director General Health Dr Parvez Kamal, MPA Syed Jaffer Shah, Dr Naseer Mohammad Nizamani, country director of Micronutrient Initiatives Dr Irshad Danish addressed the meeting.

The meeting was aimed at looking into the challenges and hurdles in the implementation of the nutrition strategy in the province and developing consensus about it.

The meeting discussed the situation of malnutrition in the country with special reference to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Munawar Khan Khattak highlighted the status of implementation of the strategy. He said that provincial government planned to invest in nutrition and proposed 88 multisectoral schemes to improve nutrition.

Dr Parvez Kamal said that problem lied in following the procedures laid down by the government which delayed the approval of the specific project.

`We have to work jointly for raising awareness among communities, media, farmers, government officials and parliamentarians to overcome the problem of malnutrition,` said Shazia Hina,nationalprogramme officer of Inter-corporation.

Syed Jaffer Shah stressed the need for capacity building of the line departments along with communities regarding improvement in nutrition practices in urban and rural areas.

The lack of knowledge with respect to healthy nutritional practices should be addressed at every level, he said.

Dr Naseer Muhammad Nizamani shared salient features of the strategy and called for integrated approach including civil society organisations, business communities, media, parliamentarians and policymakers for improving the status of nutrition and reduction in child and maternal mortality.

Dr Irshad Danish, SUN-CSA coordinator, spoke about global approaches on the issues of nutrition. He said that investment in nutrition in timely manner could make a difference in the country`s economy.