Key Takeaways
- Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah and World Bank Country Director Bolormaa Amgaabazar agreed on a unified strategy.
- The plan aims to reduce child stunting through coordinated interventions in health, nutrition, water and sanitation.
- Multiple sectors including social protection and agriculture will be integrated under this governance framework.
Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah and World Bank Country Director Bolormaa Amgaabazar have agreed to launch a comprehensive strategy aimed at accelerating the reduction of child stunting in Sindh. The agreement was reached during a high-level meeting held at the CM House.
The proposed framework will bring together interventions from health, nutrition, water and sanitation (WASH), social protection, and agriculture sectors under a unified governance and monitoring system to address this persistent challenge.
Sindh Health Minister Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho, Chief Secretary Asif Hyder Shah, Principal Secretary Agha Wasif, Acting Chairman Planning and Development Bilal Memon, and other officials attended the meeting. The World Bank team was also present, including Lead Economist Ghazala Mansuri and specialists from various sectors.
Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah highlighted that stunting remains one of Sindh's most critical human development challenges, necessitating coordinated interventions to address underlying causes such as malnutrition, poor sanitation, inadequate healthcare, unsafe drinking water, poverty, and limited dietary diversity.
Under the proposed framework, the Sindh government and the World Bank will align sectoral programmes, budgets, and performance targets through a convergence model. This approach combines health, social protection, WASH, and agri-food systems to deliver measurable improvements in child nutrition and development outcomes.
In the WASH sector, efforts will focus on expanding access to safely managed drinking water and sanitation services, improving sewage and wastewater treatment systems, and promoting Baby WASH practices to reduce environmental factors contributing to stunting. In the Health and Social Protection sectors, the programme will strengthen access to quality preventive and curative healthcare, maternal and child nutrition services, family planning, immunisation, and behavioural change interventions.
Social protection initiatives, including MAMTA and Nashonuma programmes, will provide conditional cash transfers to support improved childcare and feeding practices. In the Agri-Food sector, the strategy aims to increase access to nutritious and diverse foods through crop diversification, enhanced livestock productivity, promotion of sustainable farming practices, and widespread adoption of household kitchen gardens.
A province-wide behavioural change campaign will complement these interventions by encouraging healthier nutritional, hygiene, and childcare practices. The Chief Minister informed that World Bank-supported programmes already provide a strong platform for convergence across Sindh, covering all 29 districts through the National Health Support Programme and the Sindh Integrated Health and Population Programme.
The strategy is based on synergistic and co-located actions across four key sectors to ensure coordinated efforts in tackling child stunting. The agreement marks a significant step towards addressing this critical issue through collaborative action.
