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BACKGROUND
Unrelenting monsoon rains across Pakistan — the worst in a decade — resulted in widespread flooding and landslides between June and August 2022. The flash floods killed more than 1,700 people, destroyed 2.9 million homes and left 20.6 million people in need. The flooding significantly damaged infrastructure, affected 33 million people and displaced 7.9 million people. It also had a significant impact on agriculture, flooding 9.4 million acres of crops and killing more than 1.1 million livestock. Vulnerable communities still reeling from the impact of the floods need reliable access to essential services, such as health care, nutrition, education, protection, hygiene and sanitation.
Due to various humanitarian vulnerabilities in different provinces of Pakistan, a review of most pertinent scenarios has been conducted. Pakistan has a global acute malnutrition (GAM) rate of 17.7 per cent, exceeding the emergency threshold. Drought like conditions affecting 5 million people in Sindh and Balochistan provinces and monsoon rains and floods in all provinces, proportion of food insecure households which is already high in Pakistan (71%) and lack of access to basic services including health and nutrition are the main factors which may lead to worsening of malnutrition.
The nutrition situation in Pakistan indicates a varied but persistently alarming picture throughout the country. Nutrition response programming is mainly undertaken by MONHSR&C, Provincial Ministries of Health, UN, international and national agencies and are increasingly getting strongly involved in the humanitarian response. The role, therefore, of the Nutrition Cluster members to coordinate and support emergency and non-emergency response is vital to ensure that those most in need receive appropriate, adequate and timely assistance.
The cluster approach, introduced as part of the humanitarian reform, aims at ensuring clear leadership, predictability and accountability in international responses to humanitarian emergencies by clarifying the division of labour among organisations and better defining their roles and responsibilities within the different sectors involved in the response. In Pakistan the Nutrition Cluster was initiated in 2013 to coordinate nutrition related issues and was co-chaired by UNICEF and Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations & Coordination (MONHSRC). Subsequently, the Nutrition Cluster transitioned into Nutrition Sector. It aims at improving the effectiveness of humanitarian response while at the same time strengthening partnerships between NGOs, international organisation and UN agencies, the international Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. The nutrition cluster/sector addresses both the emergency and non-emergency nutrition issues and would help in planning and responding in case of any disaster or humanitarian situation for effective and uninterrupted delivery of life-saving nutrition services.