US spending $85m on malnutrition in flood-tossed areas, says ambassador Blome

With a large portion of Pakistan’s population, particularly children and women, suffering from moderate to acute malnutrition, the US government is spending $85 million directly to address malnutrition issues, including $12mn on acute cases, across the country. “The US, and the embassy in particular, are focusing on the issue of malnutrition in Pakistan, especially in the wake of the floods, as we started to funnel direct assistance into the flood-affected areas and seeing the scale and scope of malnutrition-related problems in those areas,” US Ambassador Donald Blome said in a recent interview with Dawn. “But there is a lot more that needs to be done and we are trying to encourage other international organisations and partners, including activating the private sector around it,” said Ambassador Blome, who had arrived in Pakistan to take up his new diplomatic assignment in April 2022, months before the biblical floods struck most part of the country.