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Bangladesh: PM Seeks Global Actions to Remove Poverty, Hunger |
| Source: |
unbconnect.com |
| Source Date: |
Sunday, August 12, 2012 |
| Focus: |
ICT for MDGs
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| Country: |
Bangladesh |
| Created: |
Aug 14, 2012 |
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Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Sunday called for concerted efforts of the international community to fight against poverty and hunger as the two issues have global origins and implications.
“The whole world needs to mobilise its resources, share experiences, research findings and technology, and fully commit themselves to implementing global and national plans and strategies on these issues,” she said.
The Prime Minister was speaking at the inaugural session of the Global Nutrition Event at 10 Downing Street.
Joint chair of the ‘Global Nutrition Event’ British Prime Minister David Cameroon and vice president of Brazil Michel Temer also spoke, among others, at the session.
“The multiple global crises and the slow process of recovery amply suggest that there is a need to look carefully at global economic and financial approaches,” she said stressing supportive policies for regional and global actions.
Hasina mentioned that there is a need for global consensus to effectively respond to over-speculative transactions and commercialisation of commodity markets. “Likewise, external banking, currency and financial transactions also have tremendous impacts.”
“Their economy-wide adverse impact has now ignited a demand for a proper balance between government protection of the financial sector and regulation of institutions. This is because such policies impact foreign exchange and competitiveness of export, and as such influence the effectiveness of domestic policies and programmes,” she said.
In turn, Hasina said, they impact domestic growth, productivity and employment, and in the process impact human development in general and hunger and under-nutrition in particular.
She mentioned that the food onslaught of 2008-09 reminds how devastating the impact of price escalation and imposition of export restrictions by food-exporting countries on net-food importing countries. “The farmers and consumers both suffer from price volatility. This must be addressed if we’re to achieve progress on hunger and under-nutrition,” she said.
Similarly, she said, development efforts are being hampered owing to impacts of climate change.
Hasina laid emphasis on the need of concerted regional and global actions that may among others include regional buffer of grains, policies such as clear affirmation not to impose export ban on imports of net-food importing countries, or preferential treatment in case ban has to be imposed.
As for Bangladesh, the premier mentioned that salinity intrusion, submergence of land due to sea-level rise, and greater intensity of rapid-onset events like cyclones are already creating havoc on people’s lives, property and livelihood.
“Evidences suggest crop yields will decline, production will be affected, crop and meat prices will increase, and consumption of cereals will fall. These will all lead to reduced calorie intake and increased child malnutrition,” the Prime Minister told her audience.
In this context, she said for Bangladesh 10 percent productivity loss owing to climate change means a loss of about 4 million metric tonnes of food grain, amounting to about US$ 2.5 billion (approximately 2.5 percent of GDP). If it adds up damages to property and similar other losses, the country are faced with a situation of a loss of about 3-4 percent of GDP growth.
“Had we been spared from these losses, we could have easily secured a much higher GDP growth. There would have been a solid economy, robust employment growth, enhanced food production, and greater allocation to health resulted in huge success on under-nutrition and stunting,” she said.
Hasina said the UN Standing Committee on Nutrition (SCN) states that malnutrition is the largest single contributor to disease, and in childhood leads to physical and mental underdevelopment.
An estimated 146 million children living in developing countries are underweight as a result of acute and chronic hunger. More than 147 million pre-school children in developing countries face stunting. The Global Hunger Index indicates that South Asia has the highest child malnutrition rate in the world.
Bangladesh represents 6 percent of global childhood under-nutrition, Hasina said adding that the government’s pragmatic policies and measures have, however, been successful in reducing the number of people consuming less than 1805 kcal (measure of poverty) per day.
“We expect to achieve the MDG target of 14 percent in 2015. During our government’s three and half years’ period, we have been able to reduce under-nutrition from 42 percent to 36 percent and stunting from 43 percent to 41 percent. We expect underweight children to be at 36.5 percent in 2015. This would place us in track to achieve the hunger target of UN MDG -1,” she said.
In Bangladesh, the Prime Minister said, one third of women are undernourished, and a large proportion of pregnant women are anemic. Micronutrient deficiencies are also major concerns.
To reduce childhood and maternal malnutrition, the government is focusing on the first 1000 days of life, that is, from conception to 24 months of life. “We’re also promoting delayed marriage to improve the nutritional status of adolescent girls and lowering incidences of low birth weight babies, and subsequent malnutrition.”
She said the government has launched a 5-year National Nutrition Services (NNS) from July 2011 to integrate nutrition with the existing health and family planning services and reduce malnutrition using the 11,000 community clinics already in operation.
A comprehensive approach to address the issue of nutrition is on to improve dietary intake, food safety, hygiene practice, water and sanitation, immunisation, and health education. Preparation of low-cost recipes, processing and preservation of micronutrient rich foods, and income generation activities are being emphasised through the existing community based arrangements.
She said the government’s research efforts has led to the development of high-yielding nutritious varieties of rice and those resistant to salinity, drought and those that grow with the rise in water level. “We’re once again self-sufficient in rice production.”
“It should be enough, if we bear compassion and humanity in our hearts, to pledge today to open all the doors, sweep away all the barriers, and combine our resources as one family to eliminating hunger, malnutrition, and poverty, and thereby, leaving a world better than the one we inherited, to our future generations.”
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