Food Insecurity in Pakistan - Essay Example

?Order 509453 Topic: Food insecurity in Pakistan The millennium is faced ecological imbalance and food insecurity. Researches relating Asia and Southern Africa regions, point the lack good governance, absence of climate adaptation policy, and poor delivery of social services negatively impact to vulnerable communities, including children (Beddington, 2010). Sociologists assailed that these socio-economic problems demand government to systematically integrate food security to broader issues of human security (Chen and Kates, 1994). In this context, the essay will explicate food insecurity in Pakistan, one the 35 countries needing intervention to mitigate hunger, explore its causes and reexamine initiatives undertaken for hungry and disaster-stricken communities. It will also attempt to provide evaluative recommendations to shape more efforts toward human security. Pakistan Situation Hunger is a chronic malady that causes malnutrition, illness, and death. Food crisis swept across Pakistan affecting (Husain, 2009) half of its total population who can’t avail the minimum consumption needs since most of its 121 districts confront problems on malnutrition, hunger and economic depravity. As it confronts the demand of contemporary social affairs, the government is on one hand dispensing governance amid (Husain, 2009) economic instability, a condition that aggravated the condition of the hungry and those in deplorable circumstances. Sociologists expressed serious concern that tribal areas, Baluchistan and Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP), resided mostly of landless farmers, are the most vulnerable to hunger. Toor (2000; 100) posit that the crisis started when there was mis-prioritization of government’s agenda to extraction industry instead of agricultural programs. It was perceived that the decision of debt-ridden Musharraf’s administration to undergo structural adjustment packages under the policies of World Bank-International Monetary Fund (WB-IMF) as one of the major causes of poverty. The adjustment trimmed down the budgetary subsidy for wheat production and exported produce to external markets, thus prompting farmers to divert to cash-crops farming to meet both ends (Toor, 2000: 101). Said structural adjustment directly affected social services too, such as education, health, public utilities and transportation. Worst, as subsidy for agriculture was compacted, the percentage of taxes levied to people also increased but there is less empirical evidence of outcomes that ‘augmented taxation’ contributed to vigorous delivery of social services in the country. Throughout the last decade, the Islamic Republic, with an ideation of democratic governance for an estimated population of 187 million (UN, 2011 and Statistics Division Government of Pakistan, 2011) suffered fluctuating level of foreign investment, extreme poverty, slow growth rate and unemployment. Its foreign and domestic debt reached to $57.21 billion (2010 estimates). Of their human resource, 15% are unemployed, 40% were landless (Toor, 2000: 103) while the economy ailed with budget deficit as national expenditures rose to estimated $ 36.24 billion as against the revenue of $25.33 billion (WFP, 2011). Inflation of commodities coupled with agricultural devastation caused by disasters is seriously affecting them (UN, 2011). The situation is further compounded in the mid part of the millennium when the whole country suffered catastrophic destruction due to earthquakes and flood. Aside from this ecological concern, they are beset with heightening tension in Kashmir-- a region considered under territorial dispute (WFP, 2011) although the region is currently deployed with peacekeepers to diffuse tension among claimant countries: China (Aksai Chin), India (Jammu and Kashmir), and Pakistan (Azad Kashmir and Northern Areas) (WFP, 2011). Moreover, Pakistan is also host of Afghan refugees estimated at 1.05 million of displaced population. Due to domestic conflict, the country also suffered millions of displacement in 2010 (WFP, 2011). Sociologists and ecologists assailed that Pakistan’s problem on food security are rooted on turtle-paced rural development, poor adaptation on climate change in the face of natural calamities, poverty, lack of transparent governance, mis-prioritization of government services, political unrest and lack of opportunities for education, specially the marginalized families. It was exacerbated with monsoon-related flash flood which swelled the rivers to a level that caused the inundation of about one-fifth of the country’s total landmass (WFP, 2011). It also damaged homes, destroyed power and telecommunication infrastructures and millions of peoples were suddenly pushed to marginal survival in the absence of food, safe drinking water or health services. Issues on power shortages, inflation rate of commodities at 16%, increasing unemployment put the crisis out of proportion (WFP, 2011). The national disaster coordinating authorities of Pakistan reported that the natural disaster affected 11 districts, 5.23 million acres of land, and 20.6 M populace. About 1.9 million homes were ruined, 2,070 schools damaged; 2,869 persons injured and death toll reached 1,767 persons (National and Provincial Disaster Management Authority, 2010). Its agriculture and livestock industry lost 80.73 billion and another 19 million respectively (PDMA, 2010). United Nations experts corroborated the situation when it reported an assessed that about 83 million people in Pakistan confront hunger everyday due to calamities and displacement. Such figure may double up to 94 million if left without attention as inequities became evident in rural and urban areas. Further assessment bared that women, which comprised a substantive percentile of its population, weren’t tapped for opportunities to help augment the income of their families; literacy rate sagged to 57% with children facing malnutrition too, one of the major causes of mortality rate other than anemia and tuberculosis (WFP, 2011). Responses for Hunger and Disaster Management Pakistan is just one of the many 925 million hungry people in the world. Efforts to localize the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) to mitigate hunger paved way to coordinative measures of the national government, its agencies, civil society, private sectors and international institutions for emergency response, help them revert to their capacitaties, and enable people to break the chains of poverty (UN, 2011). All stakeholders were motivated or mandated to comprehensively address hunger and help optimize nutrition at the household level.  It also mandated agriculture, health and social security to sensitize nutritional needs as interventions to enhance the nutrition of children (UN, 2011). Programs for hunger mitigation specifically classified the goals: improving access to food and nutrition support through emergency food assistance, nutrition intervention, and agricultural resource management for food production, adjusting trade and tax, and managing macro-economic implications (UN, 2011). It targets to strengthen food and nutrition security by addressing factors that caused the food crisis. It was suggested that food crisis can be resolved by expanding social protection systems, sustaining small holder farmer food production growth, improving food markets and developing an international consensus to use biofuel to address issues on power needs (UN, 2011). To achieve all these, UN experts strengthened partnerships, build on existing mechanism and programs, consolidate actions to bridge gaps, and conduct monitoring  mechanisms to track food and nutrition security outcomes (UN, 2011). The government of Pakistan came in from various levels in coordination with the National Disaster Coordinating Agency and Economic Affairs Division. Authorities deployed 61 helicopters for distribution of goods and 1,238 boats as well. NDCA reported that they have rescued a total of 1.4 million people from disaster; provided 310,000 tents as temporary shelters; established 5,392 relief camps; distributed 2.6 million food in packets; dispatched 53,403 metric tons of food items and afforded health services to 4.7 million people. Its military forces were also deployed for disaster response. They also targeted to provide food to 10.1 M persons; construct 13 M shelters; provide health to 11 M; serve nutrition program to 13.3 M persons; and provide protection to 10.1 IDPs. For basic services, the government intend to provide agricultural support for 7 million persons; community restoration for 20.6 M people and education for 9 million children. In conflict zones, 37,000 metric tons of foods were distributed to more than 2.7 million people including the1.6 million people displaced in 2009 crisis (WFP, 2011). Foods were also provided to 200,000 people who stayed in affected areas based on reports of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) (WFP, 2011). The UN-World Food Programme (WFP) further introduced variety of services covering “education, health, livelihood support and rehabilitation of infrastructure in areas of return.” They said that Pakistan humanitarian response plan necessitate $537 million for 2010 but only over $7.5 million has been sent so far.  The multilateral contributions came from numerous countries worldwide, private sectors and funding agencies (WFP, 2011). Humanitarian agencies have also assisted some 100,000 people in Pakistan’s Upper Swat region by providing them “food, clothing, blankets and other non-food items” during winter season, when avalanches affected the community (UN, 2011). UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) also provided IDPs with hygiene kits. About 23,850 families or about 135,000 people benefited the distribution of non-food items at Kohat and Hangu. Meanwhile, Pakistan-based non-governmental organization (NGO) also provided non-food items for children and women coming from 216 families at Mohammad Khawaja Camp. In Jalozai IDP camp, UNICEF built learning spaces for 10 primary schools while UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) distributed fruit and forest plants to 3,700 households in Buner, Lower Dir and Swat. UN-HABITAT, the UN Human Settlements Programme working to provide shelters for homeless families, helped provide cash-for-work projects in Sultanwas village in Buner and assisted the removal of rubble in 68 houses (WFP, 2011). They also trained 90 residents for brick masonry and carpentry there. This year, WFP vowed to sustain crisis response to continue the recovery program and help communities recover control over their natural resources for sustainable living by providing livelihood opportunities, inculcating climate adaptation (Lobell, Burke, Tebaldi, Mastrandrea, Falcon and Naylor, 2008) and assets through food- and cash-for-work activities. They will also provide supplementary feeding program for school children and for women in special circumstance (WFP, 2011).   In the next two years, UN target 9.5 million beneficiaries during 2011 and 2012 for its rehabilitation and reconstruction program to contribute to social cohesion (UN, 2010). The program cover “emergency relief rations to conflict-affected groups who remain displaced or have recently returned home in KPK and FATA; school feeding to promote access to education; nutritional support measures; livelihood recovery activities through community-based employment using food and/or cash; and develop institutional and local capacities on disaster risk management (WFP, 2011). They will focus on health, provision of water systems, construction of additional core shelters for the homeless, rehabilitate 10,900 schools that were used as evacuation sites by IDPs, and align relief and rehabilitation with environmental issues (UN, 2010). This efforts are geared at decreasing mortality and morbidity rates; encourage people to return to their original place of abode to start normal lives; capacitate the government to strengthen its coordinative mechanism with all stakeholders; enabling the government to be resilient in meeting needs and support; and sustain in upholding the rights and protection for displaced peoples (UN, 2010). All humanitarian groups also commit to be more transparent in their interventions; bridge the gaps in humanitarian assistance; scale up their capacities to meet the immense needs of communities; strengthen information management for accurate reporting and dissemination of right information; and severe coordination with all stakeholders (UN, 2010). Evaluation Hunger is not merely the absence of food to eat nor a physical condition considered by nutritionist as malnutrition. This is a structural issue that calls for government to reevaluate national policy to balance the improvement of food production using economic protectionist policies toward a holistic human security of its people. It must also reevaluate taxation policies and devote economic focus on reducing poverty by supporting agriculture, lessening export of farm produce and identifying mechanism that will hasten the introduction of alternative livelihood for the marginalized and vulnerable communities. Humanitarian intervention significantly helped depressed communities with the substantive amount of budget poured for rehabilitation and reconstruction in affected and ruined communities, but government must realize that this assistance could endure only within targeted period. The issue of sustaining their very lives and improving their conditions rest on the government and with its people. Hence, they must harness and strengthen their capacities and map out the resources within their country to bolster their development plans and realize desired outcomes. The government must also increase budget and improve the mechanism in the delivery of social services, especially on health --to include programs on maternal education to enhance responsiveness on malnutrition at the family level. In value chain analysis, the improvement of delivery of social services is possible only if government officials enforce measures that will prevent systemic corruption so that resources could be genuinely accorded to programs that will support the needy and significantly improve their living conditions. Improved land access will further lower the prices of prime commodities as we would expect high agricultural outputs if human resources invest their energies in agriculture development. It will also consequentially help families regain control of their income to mitigate hunger, too. The government must therefore seriously reconsider land reform program by redistributing land to landless farmers to improve agricultural production. Let people farm to produce goods so that they can bring food to their respective tables, thus increase nutritional intake of children. To see people enjoying the bounty from agriculture is a leap to positive change. Moreover, the situation in Pakistan clearly showed the vulnerability of these people to natural and man-made disasters, risks and hunger. The same natural disasters may happen again in the next few decades because the geographic hazards are inherent to Pakistan’s geographic location, except for armed-conflict in remote communities which can be controlled by peace policies and institutions. Anent to this, the government must integrate disaster risk reduction management at the community and institutional levels to improve peoples resiliency in responding to catastrophe. This means that they must have institutionalized coordinative measures, hazard assessments in all regions, and disaster-preparedness plans. The post-disaster rehabilitation and reconstruction programs must always be focused on reducing vulnerability and must be integrated in national development plans. Conclusion Hunger must be addressed by the government and international humanitarian communities with sensitivity to the construct of responsible governance and transparency toward a resilient nation.  Reconstruction must be sustained vigorously based on identified necessary social services and effective governance must be delivered to strengthen communities. The challenge of pursuing responses to this malady demands integration of disaster management and peacebuilding as a national policy. Hunger mitigation should also be integrated in development plans to inspire concerted and multi-pronged process in reducing poverty. The government must sternly recognize that hunger and disasters are both impediments to genuine development, thus it must also endeavor to improve people’s resiliency to withstand impacts of man-made and natural disasters. This is only possible if all concerted efforts are focused to the vulnerable communities. REFERENCES Statistics Division Government of  Pakistan (2011). Population Census Organization. Government of Pakistan. DP Center Islamabad. http://www.statpak.gov.pk/ Accessed March 16, 2011 S. Akbar Zaidi. Issues in Pakistan's Economy. 2nd Edition. Oxford University Press. Ishrat Husain (2009) . The Role of Politics in Pakistan's Economy. Journal of International  Affairs. Fall/Winter 2009. Vol. 63 No. 1. Columbia University, New York, USA. http://online-pdf-search.co.cc/index.php. Accessed March 16, 2011 Toor, Saadia (2010) In: Kugelman, Michel and Hathaway (Eds) Hunger Pains: Pakistan's Food Insecurity. 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Protracted Relief and Recovery Operation: Food Assistance for Household Food Security, Early Recovery, Peace and Social Stability January 2011 – December 2012. Rome, Italy. Read More