Regional efforts needed to root out poverty, hunger
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has said her government will remain steadfast in formulating and enforcing laws to enhance food and agriculture production and ensure food and nutritional security for all.
Inaugurating a three-day “South Asia Right to Food Conference 2015” in the capital yesterday, she laid emphasis on regional initiative to eradicate poverty and hunger and set up Saarc Food Bank without delay.
“There is no alternative to combined efforts to eradicate poverty and hunger from South Asia and the recent devastating earthquake in Nepal reminds us the urgency of establishing regional food security,” she said.
Nobel Peace Laureate Kailash Satyarthi was the guest of honour at the conference being held under the auspices of Anti Poverty Platform (APP), a forum of as many as 43 government, non-government and international organisations working for poverty alleviation.
Chair of the organising committee of the conference Qazi Kholiquzzaman presided over the inaugural session held at Krishibid Institution auditorium.
The PM laid emphasis on speeding up the initiative taken to set up Saarc Food Bank saying South Asian leaders are working to establish the food bank as soon as possible.
“Let the Saarc Food Bank be a friend in need so that no one dies of starvation in our region,” she said.
Despite remarkable success and progress of civilization, and science and knowledge, it is yet not possible to ensure adequate food for all the people on the planet, the PM said.
Referring to a report of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), Hasina said nearly 805 million people out of 7.3 billion on the earth suffer from malnutrition. One in every nine is not getting required quantity of food and out of them 791 million hungry people live in the developing countries and 276.4 million in the South Asia region alone, she said.
The PM said food security does not depend only on production of food grains. Ensuring food for all is a complex task as a host of factors like poverty, flawed economic and distribution system, conflict, over population, food and agricultural policy, climate change etc. influence the availability of food.
Hasina said only $30 billion is required per annum to eradicate poverty from the earth. According to a 2012 calculation, this expenditure is equal to 8 days' cost of US military budget.
The world spent about $1.76 trillion for military defence purpose which was about 2.5 percent of the world GDP or approximately $249 per person, she said, adding that a fraction of the amount being spent for military purpose is enough to eradicate hunger and poverty from the earth.
Sheikh Hasina said her government has been working relentlessly to fulfil the basic needs of Bangladesh. Defying all obstacles, Bangladesh has progressed remarkably in terms of food security, nutrition, education, health and social protection, she said.
During 2013-14 fiscal, Bangladesh produced 38 million tonnes of rice and already achieved self-sufficiency in food production. Food storage capacity rose to 1.9 million tonnes, she said.
Pointing out the steps taken by her government to ensure food security of the poor, she said the social safety net programmes were widened for the relatively poor and disadvantaged people.
The premier said, “It should be our commitment to ensure food and nutritional security across South Asia region. We are also requesting to discard the food wastage in different corners of the world.”
Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi said millions of children were deliberately kept hungry across the world. Ensuring food security cannot be achieved in isolation. All initiatives for food security, education and development should go hand in hand, he said.
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