Pakistan fares badly on global hunger index: aid agencies

ISLAMABAD: While noting Pakistan’s little progress in the fight against hunger, two world aid agencies have placed the South Asian country at the bottom of the latest food security rankings.

The 2021 Global Hunger Index jointly compiled by Welthungerhilfe and Concern Worldwide, ranked Pakistan 92 among 116 countries with a score of 24.7, declaring its hunger levels ‘serious’.

It, however, said the country’s GHI score had registered a 23.7 per cent decline since 2000, showing its ‘accelerating’ progress in the fight against hunger.

“Pakistan’s GHI score trend shows that while the decline in the score is steady, it has decreased at a faster rate since 2012,” revealed the index launched by Welthungerhilfe, Concern Worldwide and Alliance 2015 partners ACTED, CESVI and Helvetas during an event here.

Country Director of Welthungerhilfe Aisha Jamshed, also in attendance, said the world was off track in the fight against hunger, moving further and further away from the binding goal of ending hunger by 2030.

She said the latest UN reports had already sounded the alarm with the number of hungry and poor people rising again for several years.

“Some 811 million people suffer from hunger in the world and 41 million live on the brink of famine,” she said, warning that 47 countries, including 28 in Sub-Saharan Africa, will not even reach low hunger levels in the next eight years.The Welthungerhilfe country director said her German humanitarian aid organisation was helping food insecure communities build resilience with the cooperation of civil society, government and the private sector, besides raising public awareness and understanding of the struggle against hunger.

Food and nutrition security adviser at Welthungerhilfe Omer Bangash presented facts, figures and action-oriented findings to fight hunger.

Addressing food and nutrition security, Welthungerhilfe and the Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research engaged in an intervention to explore the nutritional values of indigenous flora in the Thar Desert to produce recipes for consumption.

Principal scientific officer at the PCSIR Dr Omer Tarar presented the findings on analytical testing of flora in the Thar Desert for nutritional analysis. Chief of nutrition at the planning and development ministry Dr Nazeer Ahmed highlighted the importance of the localised nutrition composition table within agro-climatic zones. He said climate change and less adapted local food systems were making it hard for the country to feed its people. World Food Programme country director Chris Kaye underscored the resilience of local food systems and the impact of climate change while Head of Cooperation of the Delegation of the European Union to Pakistan Ovidiu Mic commended the work against hunger in the country.

The event ended with a vote of thanks by Helvetas country director Dr Arjumand Nizami on behalf of the Alliance 2015.