Institute for Global Health and Development, Aga Khan University hosted a roundtable discussion on ‘The New Forefront for Action on Climate Change and Health in Pakistan’

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Institute for Global Health and Development, Aga Khan University (AKU) hosted a roundtable discussion on ‘The New Forefront for Action on Climate Change and Health in Pakistan’ at Islamabad on December 21, 2021. The discussion convened leading environmental and health researchers and policy experts of Pakistan. On behalf ECOSF, President Prof. Dr. Manzoor Hussain Soomro participated in the event.

The event provided opportunity to Pakistan’s leading researchers and policy experts in the nexus of climate change and health to determine the future path towards establishing a network, coordinated research, policy formulation, and broad multi-sectoral national response.

The roundtable discussed various Climat e Change Challenges, including recurring heatwaves, heavy monsoon rainfalls, floods, droughts, sub-optimal agriculture output, and food shortage in various regions of Pakistan. Experts highlighted that these extreme events are having an inordinate impact on the health and wellbeing of the population. The roundtable discussion also underscored that that despite emitting less than one percent of the global emissions, Pakistan is the fifth most vulnerable country to climate change.

Prof. Dr. Zaffar Bhutta, Director Institute for Global Health and Development, Agha Khan University presented his talk on ‘The relationship of Climate Change and Child Nutrition in Pakistan’. Many other experts on climate and health issues also provided their feedback on the matter. Towards the end, Dr. Faisal Sultan, Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Health made his concluding remarks. The Surgeon General of Pakistan Army Lt. General Madam Nigar Johar also shared her wisdom in the roundtable.

During the discussion, Prof. Dr. Manzoor Hussain Soomro underlined that the education about climate change and health as well as food security is overarching and needs to be incorporated in formal education at all levels. He emphasized over developing the capacity of school teachers as a key intervention and shared that ECOSF is actively engaged in developing training modules in Climate Change Education. He further offered his support towards cooperation and collaboration with AKU in the matter.