ISLAMABAD, April 10: About 42 per cent children in the country are either underweight or anaemic due to poor diet and lack of awareness among parents of the nutritional needs of their children in the early stages of life.

Advisor to the prime minister on women development, social welfare and special education Ms Nilofer Bakhtiar said this while speaking at the inaugural ceremony of a workshop on “Early Childhood Development, Project Preparatory Technical Assistance (ECD-PPTA) here on Thursday.

Ms Bakhtiar said almost half of the Pakistani households fell below the poverty line, which clearly reflected on the health of children. Low human development status and insufficient social services have been the main reasons for increased poverty, she emphasised. “Because of social structure and customs in Pakistan, women and girls have suffered even more due to lack of access to nutrition, education, healthcare and unemployment,” Ms Nilofer said. Similarly, she added, around 40 per cent of children under five are either moderately or severely underweight that means eight million malnourished children in Pakistan.

Ms Bakhtiar said the health status of mothers and children in Pakistan was among the worst in Asia. She said maternal mortality rate was 500 per 100,000 births and infant mortality about 85 per 1,000 births. One of the reasons for this poor health status of mothers and children, she added, was lack of awareness of their specific health needs at particular junctures of their life.

She was also of the view that education was important for the healthy growth of a child. Almost seven million children are out of primary schools. Quoting various studies, she said poor child care not only led to increased risk of mortality and disability, it also resulted in stunning, poor school performance and intellectual underachievement. The government’s initiative of Early Childhood Care Development would help strengthen the institution of family in nurturing their children on most modern and scientific methods, she said.

Ms Bakhtiar said though the government had a wide network of education and health services in the country, its service delivery needed to be improved to the desirable levels. Since lack of proper needs of children in their early lives is the main reason for their improper growth and development, therefore, this project will go a long a way towards realising the goal of creating a congenial environment wherein the children can grow to their fullest possible potential, she added.

During the day’s proceedings, the participants were told that PPTA would assist the government in the preparations of the project, which would help develop and provide an integrated ECD service delivery.

The specific objectives of the project are: reduction in the prevalence of underweight, anaemic and stunted children; provision of integrated service delivery in health, nutrition, and early education with community-based initiatives and better child care and establishment of a support strategy that will help improve the capacity of the local governments and local NGOs to assist communities in the planning, financing and monitoring of ECD activities.

It was also observed that NGOs, especially those working at the grass-roots level would be crucial for the successful implementation of an ECD project.