[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text dp_text_size=”size-4″]The UN has set aside $5.5 million for emergency nutrition and food security interventions in the “most vulnerable communities of Balochistan and Sindh” affected by the 2022 floods.
The United Nations said in a press release issued on Monday that the number of children suffering from wasting in flood-affected areas had greatly increased compared to the pre-flood situation, which was already reaching emergency levels.
According to a rapid survey conducted in 15 flood-affected districts, “nearly one-third of children aged six to 23 months suffer from moderate acute malnutrition and 14% from severe acute malnutrition.”
According to the report, the number of children admitted to hospitals with severe acute malnutrition and medical complications has gradually increased since the floods, as global food prices have risen.
Also Read: USAID announces 500 scholarships to students of flood affected districts.
In response to the crisis, UN Resident Coordinator in Pakistan Julien Harneis announced that he would devote $5.5 million of the $6.5 million allocation from the Central Emergency Response Fund to emergency nutrition and food security interventions.
“This additional $5.5m will help Unicef, WFP (World Food Programme), WHO and NGOs provide emergency nutrition interventions as part of the government-led flood response in the most vulnerable communities of Balochistan and Sindh, with OCHA (UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) coordinating and ensuring that the funds are used in an efficient manner,” the statement read.
Child wasting had already reached “emergency levels” before the floods, according to Harneis, but what he was seeing now in villages was “very worrying.”
“We are grateful for the global community’s support thus far, but much more is required to assist the government in providing immediate therapeutic food and care to the growing number of children at risk of death.”
Also Read: WB diverts $615 million for flood relief.
“We must assist the government in averting a nutrition crisis that would have dangerous and irreversible consequences for millions of children and Pakistan’s future,” he said in a press release.
It stated that more funding was “urgently required” to implement early detection, integrated prevention, and treatment of malnutrition in a greater number of villages and healthcare facilities because only one-third of the population was malnourished.
“There is also a need to increase the number of interventions that improve availability, affordability and accessibility to nutritious foods that protect children from wasting,” the UN said.
The floods of 2022 were the tenth most expensive climate disaster to hit any country in the last decade. The floods cost the country an estimated $3 billion, killed over 1,700 people, and displaced eight million people.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
