The Political Economy of Undernutrition National Report: Pakistan

In this report, we use political economy analysis to demonstrate that nutrition in Pakistan has remained off the policy agenda because of large disconnects between key sectors, a lack of integrated cross-sectoral programmes, and a missing constituency for nutrition within the political and bureaucratic elites, civil society groups, and the electorate in general. This study moves beyond a discussion of health-specific interventions and recommendations to focus instead on governance-related explanations and interventions that focus on the roles that policy, actors, and institutions play. This approach leads the study to conclude that undernutrition in Pakistan remains high because of a lack of cross-sectoral collaboration between the different institutions that deal with this issue, a lack of a strong national agenda against undernutrition that emanates from within the highest executive offices of the state, and a lack of consistent monitoring of the situation using reliable data.