ISLAMABAD: The Sindh government will launch a project with the World Bank’s assistance to increase the dietary diversity and improve hygiene practices in the province.

The bank will take up the Sindh government’s project named Sindh Multi-Sectoral Action for Nutrition (MSAN) in March to approve $21 million financing for the project

The project will lead to behavioural change to achieve open defecation-free villages and introduce production of nutrition food through homestead gardening practices and increasing household knowledge of food and nutrition.

The sanitation component will be implemented in 13 districts while the agriculture for nutrition component will be implemented in 20 union councils of four districts that will overlap with the sanitation component’s districts including Dadu, Ja­­co­b­abad, Kash­m­o­­re, Larkana, Kam­bar-Shah­dadkot, Tharparkar, Badin, Sanghar, Tando Moham­mad Khan, Umerkot, Shikarpur and Sajawal.

The agriculture for nutrition components will be implmented in Jacobabad, Tharparkar, Sanghar and Umerkot.

The Sindh government is one of the first provincial governments of the country to allocate and release financial resources for nutrition-related purposes. To complement action for nutrition support, the provincial government has developed a Priority Action Framework for Nutrition programme to reduce stunting from 48 per cent in 2016 to 30 per cent in 2021.

It has allocated Rs1 billion in the current fiscal year and committed to add the same amount in later years for the project.

Published in Dawn, January 15th, 2017