ISLAMABAD   -   Appreciating the Pakistan’s Food System Dashboard, experts at a workshop advocated for comprehensive, evidence-based and collaborative efforts to promote sustainable and healthy food systems in Pakistan.

The workshop titled, “Hackathon: Innovating towards a sustainable future”, was organized by the DEMO and HSA in collaboration with GAIN, and PARC here on Saturday.

Students, representing various universities from different majors participated in this Hackathon and gained hands-on experience with the PFSD, collaborated on tackling pressing issues, and honed their problem-solving and presentation skills.

Dr. Elizabeth Graham, Research Advisor & Project Manager of the Nourishing Food Pathways programme at GAIN, shared the global context of monitoring food systems and the emergence of the Global Food System Dashboard in this context. She further stated that the development of the Pakistan Subnational Food Systems Dashboard is a significant milestone for Pakistan in its food system transformation journey. This initiative will prove to be a helpful tool for policymakers to make effective policy interventions.

Earlier, Faiz Rasool, Head of Policy and Advocacy at GAIN, stated that a nutrition emergency should be declared in Pakistan due to 42% of the child population being malnourished and 82.8% of Pakistanis unable to afford healthy diets.

He emphasised that the Food System Dashboard for Pakistan is the initial step in transforming the food system by providing researchers and policymakers with accurate and reliable data for effective decision-making.

He also added that academia and different development partners like DEMO are critical for generating evidence to support the formation of robust policies to transform food system in Pakistan.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Shaheer Elahi, Associate Professor, Health Services Academy, said that the Hackathon empowered university students to analyse data from the PFSD and develop innovative solutions to address critical food system challenges within Pakistan.

According to him, this Hackathon further promoted youth engagement with food security, foster fresh perspectives on food system improvement, and ultimately generate actionable solutions to benefit Pakistan’s future.