ISLAMABAD: The federal government has included Rs 100 million project on nutrition in the current Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP), which will coordinate efforts to address malnutrition from federally-administered areas, including Islamabad, FATA and Gilgit-Baltistan. “Nutrition programmes in all the provinces have also been approved by the Planning Commission and are now in the implementation phase,” Federal Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal said during a meeting with a delegation of World Food Programme Executive Board on Monday. The minister announced the establishment of Nutrition Centre of international standard in a leading university this year. “HEC is working in this direction with further directives to come up with a plan as to how the problem of malnutrition can be tackled by involving academia through research and action,” he added. The government had joined UN scaling-up nutrition (SUN) movement in 2013 to combat malnutrition based on the principle that all people have a right to food and good nutrition. Zero Hunger Cell has been established in Ministry of National Food, Security & Research in collaboration with WFP to overcome hunger and malnutrition. “Lack of ownership and planning were the reasons of our failure in Millennium Development Goals MDGs, causing great embarrassment to Pakistan, but we are taking a proactive approach to meet the targets of Sustainable Development Goals SDGs,” Iqbal said. Provinces and federal ministries have been advised to prepare the local versions of SDGS for a broader national action plan. “The monitoring unit on SDGs has been set up in Planning Commission to ensure integrated approach towards achieving desired goals,” he added. The government, he said, appreciates the role of WFP in reducing different forms of malnutrition in Pakistan and will continue to learn from its best practices with respect to capacity building and technical expertise related programs. “We will gradually reduce our donor dependence in social sector by increasing political ownership,” he added.