Pakistan loses 2.5pc of GDP to undernourishment

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan loses 2.5 percent of its GDP a year as undernourishment eats into workforce’s productivity, increasing health expenditures manifold, a study said on Friday.  

“Current prevalence of under-nutrition in Pakistan amounts up to $6.8 billion annually, equal to 2.5 percent of national GDP,” said the study titled, ‘Economic Consequences of Undernutrition in Pakistan’.

Ahsan Iqbal, minister for planning, development and reform, discussing the report findings during a meeting with the researchers, said the malnutrition poses a significant challenge to human and economic development efforts. 

“Our government is committed to realising sustainable development goals through a collaborative approach between public and private sectors,” Iqbal said in a statement. “Public-private partnership results in synergy of resources directed towards a better Pakistan.”

The study undertook national demographic, health, economic and labour statistics to project depressed national economic activity due to undernutrition. It measured undernutrition losses through four pathways: child mortality, depressed future productivity of children, depressed current productivity and excessive healthcare expenditures. Minister Iqbal said Pakistan has one of the worst nutrition rates and so, the government initiated several programmes at the national level to counter malnutrition. 

He said undernutrition is both a cause and a consequence of poverty. Poverty and undernutrition create a vicious cycle leading to child morbidity and mortality, retarded physical and cognitive growth, diminished learning capacity and school performance, and ultimately lower adult productivity and earnings, he added. 

The minister said undernutrition coincides with many health and economic deprivations, affecting child growth and development. 

“It is not possible to isolate the nutrition factor or the child development factor because then it overlooks countless interactions of nutrition, nature and nurture,” he added. “Government has put an immense focus on the issue of undernutrition in pregnant women, which contributes to low birth weight deliveries, while undernutrition in children contributes to impaired immunity and infection.” The first pillar of ‘Vision 2025’ is to invest in every citizen to improve his/her choices and quality of life. This requires capitalising on and strengthening existing social capital, improving the human skill base of the population, and providing access to opportunities for advancement. It involves a rapid scaling up of investments in education, health and social development. 

Minister Iqbal said the study intends to demonstrate the enormous economic losses from malnutrition in Pakistan and the need to ensure long-term investment, even beyond the current Vision 2025 in order to uplift Pakistan’s economic potential.  “More analyses are needed to identify the most promising policy options bringing together a series of multisectoral cost-effective interventions for both short- and long-term results,” he added. “A healthy nation is pivotal to economic and social development, which is one of the major pillars in the Pakistan Vision 2025.”

Fourteen indicators of undernutrition, documented in the most recent national surveys, suggested 100 million individual cases, affecting more than half of adult women and two thirds of children.  Each indicator suggested a risk towards survival, health issues, child development, school performance and adult earnings. 

These fourteen indicators of undernutrition include low body mass index, short stature, anemia, birth defects (folic acid), non-exclusive breastfeeding, non-continued breastfeeding, underweight, weight for height, stunting, vitamin A deficiency, iodine deficiency disorder, zinc deficiency, and vitamin D deficiency. 

The study comprehensively covers determinants of undernutrition and sheds lights on the globally- established coefficients of risk associated to undernutrition levels.