Govt Committed To Eliminate Hunger In Country: Planning Secretary

Federal Secretary Planning Development and Reform Zafar Hasan Friday said that government was striving to eliminate hunger and all forms of malnutrition in compliance with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) targets.

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 12th Oct, 2018 ) :Federal Secretary Planning Development and Reform Zafar Hasan Friday said that government was striving to eliminate hunger and all forms of malnutrition in compliance with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) targets.

He said launch of national food security policy and multi-sectoral nutrition strategy showed the government resolves towards addressing the challenges of zero hunger in the country under SDGs.

Zafar Hasan expressed these views while addressing a round table conference on "The state of Food Security and Nutrition in the World "organized by the Center for Rural Economy Ministry of Planning Development and Reform in collaboration with the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO).

While addressing the participants, Zafar Hasan said that Pakistan recognized the importance of food security.

"Pakistan has produced surplus staple wheat and sugar, but still approximately 18% of our population is facing challenges of food insecurity." he said.

Several factors like lack of awareness about healthy food and poor access due to low income and geographic barriers are the main reasons that upset the dietary system of households, as a result stunting is 42% which is one of the highest across the world, and this phenomena is not only in the rural area of Pakistan even the urban sectors are suffering for this.

Zafar Hasan said that Pakistan was contributing towards climate change and global warming issues however we were amongst the worst sufferers, the availability and storage of water had now become one of the most critical issue depicting the public policy decisions in Pakistan.

He said that high level shortage in the summer due to 30 percent less rains and high level shortage was also expected in the winter season, where the glacial cover was projected to decrease by 20 percent and temperature increase by 2-3 C by 2050.

Consequently , high melting rate would result into floods and decrease in the ice cap .with just a 1 C rise in the temperature , wheat yields in Pakistan are projected to decline by 6-9% an even smaller rise can several impact cash crops like cotton.

Secretary Zafar Hasan said that Pakistan agriculture sector had already witnessed number of floods of 2010 and 2011 which caused USD 7.6 billion in accumulated damages and losses, which was a huge amount for an economy like Pakistan.

Therefore realizing the threat of climate change, Pakistan is one of the first signatories to the United Nations Framework Convention on climate change (UNFCC) and now going to actively participate in COP-24 Katowice, 2018.

He said that Pakistan had decreased the value for prevalence of undernourishment from 23.3% in 2006 to 18% in 2017. He said that emphasis was being giving on availability and production of diverse nutrition food.

He said using education as an intervention approach advocacy and public awareness was being increased. The billion trees, a forestation project is the country's largest plantation drive which is being taken forward by launching the 10 billion tree plantation in next 5 years.

He said "We are in the formulation of 12th Five Year Plan to reduce hunger include establishing food security information system, improving food accessibility and creating awareness towards food consumption.

The round table conference was attended by the high officials of the ministry, FAO representative of Pakistan Ms. Mina Dowlatchahi , and WFP representative in Pakistan Finbarr curran who appreciate the efforts of the Center for Rural Economy a project of MOPDR for organizing such a valuable round table conference .