Minutes of Meeting - Meeting Minutes

National Nutrition Cluster | Working Group 

 

Date: 8th June 2021             

Time: 1.00 pm to 2.30 pm         

Venue: Virtual meeting on zoom 

 

Chair: 

• Chair: Dr Baseer Khan Achakzai, Director Nutrition, MoNHSR&C 

• Dr. Khawaja Masuood Ahmed, National Coordinator Nutrition, MoNHSR&C  

Co-Chair  

• Mr. Syed Saeed Qadir Sahib Qadir UNICEF (Coordinator NNWG) 

 

Participant Organizations: 

AAP Sindh, UNICEF, WFP, USAID, HANDS, ACF, Shifa Foundation, Save the Children 

 

Action Points of the Meeting 

S/No.	Action	Responsibility	Deadline
1	Data on 5Ws from all provinces	Provincial Colleagues	ASAP
2.	Nominations from INGOs and NNGOs	INGOs & NNGOs	26th May 2021
3.	TWG on EPRP to commence work on EPRP	EPRP TWG	ASAP
4.	Briefing on SMART & SQUEAC	ACF	8th June 2021

 

1. Opening remarks 

• Dr Baseer Achakzai Sahib 

• Thanked all the national and provincial colleagues who helped and supported to take the Nutrition to higher agenda. He congratulated all colleagues and praised their contribution. He announced that though the PC1 is technically approved but some of the observations are being addressed. He stated that this PC1 is resource intensive, and PM will decide regarding the funding issues.  

• He requested all UN and NGO partners to share their funding support details with the ministry. 

• Dr Khawaja Masoud Sahib 

• Thanked all colleagues who prayed for him during his illness. He expressed his contentment and gratitude on the approval of the PC1 and said he is hopeful that the budget will also be approved for the Nutrition PC1 

• He also congratulated Punjab on approval of their provincial PC1 for the National Nutrition Programme and on prioritizing funding to nutrition. He stressed that AJK, GB and KPK need to be focussed now so that their funding needs can be addressed. 

• He congratulated WHO for the establishment of NSC at PIMS Islamabad and also thanked WHO for reiterating the commitment of establishing NSCs all over Pakistan. He told that OTP and TSFP will also be established there. 

• Dr Saeed Qadir Shah Sahib 

• He also congratulated all the colleagues on the approval of PC1. 

• He stated that Nutrition Sector Emergency Preparedness Plan is underway and meetings with all provincial NWGs are in progress. He stated that we will take this chance to develop Nutrition HNO as well. While giving details of the EPRP he said that scenarios including draught, Floods and COVID are being considered. 

• He also informed that Indian variant has been detected in Sindh and precautions are being taken. He also mentioned the requirement of oxygen needs to be monitored carefully.  

 

2. Presentation of SMART Survey in Sindh by ACF 

• Mr Saad Tanvir presented details regarding the ongoing SMART survey in 8 districts of Sindh including Mityari, TMK, TAY, Thatta, Sujawal, Larkana, Shikarpur and Qambar. 

• He told that survey started in March and we are in phase three and final activities are going on in the last district.  

• He said that the main indicator for the survey is GAM but many other indicators including SMA with complication, Obesity related indicators are also part of the survey. He told that extensive trainings were provided to the survey teams.  

• He said that results will be published after validation of all data.  

• Details of the presentation is attached. 

 

3. Partners Update 

 

• Balochistan Update: Dr Abid Sahib and Imran Jatoi Sahib. 

• Imran Jatoi Sahib informed that there were some issues regarding the data sharing and these have been reviewed. 

• He also stated that work on EPRP with support of provincial government and partners is being done. 

• Dr Abid Sahib informed that flood districts are being reviewed for EPRP. He also told that meeting with PDMA is being planned to discuss the preparedness plans. 

• He also stated that data issues are being resolved 

 

• KPK update by Aien Khan Sahib:  

• Aien Khan Sahib shared that all the interventions are going on smoothly in the province. He shared that ten more OTP sites are being setup in Peshawar soon. Related Trainings have been conducted last week  

• He said that due to many official obligations regular working group meetings could not be held but we will hold the NWG meetings regularly on monthly basis now. The third meeting will be held in this week. 

• He also shared that nutrition supplies especially RUTF are about to exhaust now and we will have these problems in coming two to three months. He said that they are looking forward to the national PC1 and hoped that they may get the supplies by the end of the year through it. 

• Sindh update by Dr Mazhar Arain Sahib:  

• He said that there was some uncertainty regarding the AAP Health Programme from June onwards. But now there is hope that some more nutrition projects will be taken up provincially. 

• He requested all stake holders to sit together to map all the ongoing and future interventions for coordination and align with national PC1 

• He shared that no staff has been infected with COVID in last month. 

• Sindh is having coordination meetings on monthly basis and sixth meeting will be held on 26th 

• The breastfeeding act has been discussed with ministry of health and change in the amendments will be reviewed by the department of Law and after review and approval we will try to get it passed in the provincial assembly in July session. 

• We also had task force meeting on the multisectoral interventions, gand we are supporting the secretariate on it 

• Some trainings on early childhood development had been postponed due to COVID which we are planning master trainer training in this month. 

• UNICEF Director will be visiting Karachi. 

• EPRP prioritized districts have been discussed and shared 

 

Saeed Qadir Sahib before requesting WHO update congratulated WHO for the establishment of centre of excellence at PIMS which will also serve as training institute for the stabilization centres. 

• WFP by Dr Yasir Ihtesham Sahib 

• Functional sites in Sindh and Balochistan and soon with the support and funding by Saudi Arabia we will establish sites in KPK and AJK. 

• A beneficial meeting was held on Ahsas Nashonuma with UNICEF to increase the coverage and maximum possible integration with CMAM programme. At the moment 50 facilitation centres across the country.  

• We are searching consultant for CMAM guideline revision. 

• CMAM surge evaluation has already been discussed in the NNWG. 

• UNICEF. Dr Naureen Sahiba 

• UNICEF have calculated the forecast for the requirements of PPEs for the provinces for the remaining 2021. 

• In regard to Vitamin-A, second consignment approval has already been taken. First round will be conducted in first week of September while second round will be in December 2021. 

• Vitamin-A case study has been published with the support of regional office and will be shared with NNWG as well 

• UNICEF has had internal meetings on nutrition investment case, and we think that the case needs to be closed down. We expect provincial colleagues after consultation to adopt options provided by Dr Khawaja Sahib. 

• UNICEF has reached a final conclusion on DHIS2 indicators that IYCF, Vitamin-A and IFA are the areas identified to be included. Internal consensus will be built on the finalization. 

• Nutri Dash database is open and we are updating the data on it. WFP and WHO requested to support the update. 

• USI consultation is being planned by the end of June. All provincial colleagues to participate. 

• AOB and Closing  

• Dr Khawaja Sahib thanked all the colleagues and requested WFP to update the details on Ahsas Nashonuma Programme to coordinate with Nutrition 

 

Nutrition Working Group meeting is held every week.  

The next meeting is scheduled on …….28th June 2021