Actionaid

Karachi , Thursday, July 12, 2007: While the country was in the grip of a crisis owing to the threat provoked by extremist clerics and the high-handed response by military led government, ActionAid Pakistan drew attention towards the plight of the poor trapped in absolute poverty. On the occasion of the national launch of HungerFREE, the global campaign for the right to food, the campaigners called for a focused approach to deal with hunger which was getting chronic in parts of the country. That the country does not have any data component as regards hunger in its statistics systems indicate the ostrich approach of the government towards existence of absolute poverty among a large population, in rural areas as well as urban centers.

According to Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) 35 million people in Pakistan were malnourished till the year 2003, roughly 23 per cent of Pakistans total population which stood at 155.37 million. The official statistics indicate 23.9 per cent of the total population living below the poverty line measured on one dollar a day basis.

The majority of Pakistans hungry include women and children who go hungry in impoverished circumstances. Then there are internally displaced people who are victims of conflict and tribal feuds; peasants and tenants evacuated from farms by authorities and feudal lords; farmers cultivating small patches who bear the brunt of policy-inflicted crop failures; and people in urban slums when they fail to earn adequate wages.

The campaigners were of the view that growing hunger in Pakistan has political dimensions. Many of them termed it as an absolute failure of governance which generates and increases inequality, injustice and instability.

HungerFREE is part of ActionAid Pakistans contribution to the implementation of the UN Voluntary Guidelines on the Right to Food. The Programmeme included a seminar on Growing Vulnerability of the Poor and Quest for Food Sovereignty followed by a Walk for Awareness on Right to Food. Community theatre groups performed in the cultural evening. Scores of people turned up to participate in the event. The event attracted a significant coverage in print and electronic media. Earlier, a press conference by the campaigners marked as a curtain-raiser as well as a media launch.

Those who joined HungerFREE at the national launch included countrys leading lights in the area of journalism, research, human rights and social work. These include renowned economist Harris Gazdar, human rights activist I.A. Rehman, journalist Nargis Baloch, poet Fahmida Riyaz and Farhat Abass Shah, social workers Sadiqa Sallahuddin, Samina Nazir, Khadim Hussain, Mustafa Talpur and Tasleem Mazhar. The campaigners on HungerFREE outlined actions to be taken to limit the vulnerability that provokes hunger.

ActionAid believes that Hunger is an indication of violation of the right to food, the most fundamental and enabling human right of all. Hunger dulls the intellect, hinders development, thwarts productivity and prevents individuals and societies from realizing their potential. Exacerbating with every passing day, hunger is worsening the scene of poverty.

While states fail to realise and protect the food rights, multinational corporations keep on destroying people's food production systems through trade, investment and other policies and means.

With the strong belief that the worlds poor can lead a decisive victory over poverty, ActionAid facilitates and strengthens their agency for change while concentrating on the promotion and protection of human rights. We believe that food sovereignty is the right, freedom and power of the people and their communities to assert and realize the right to food and to produce food.

HungerFREE is ActionAid's international campaign on the right to food. A global rights based campaign, HungerFREE is calling for governments to deliver on their commitment to halve hunger by 2015 and to end hunger related deaths by providing appropriate and sustainable access to food. The overall goal of the campaign is to demand justice on the right to food with following specific objectives:

strengthening the international Right to Food Framework with more people informed of, claiming, and enjoying their food rights;

facilitating the poor, especially poor women, have more access to the natural resources they need to grow food; and

strengthening the accountability and regulatory frameworks for corporations, and exposing the businesses when blocking solutions to hunger.

ActionAid International is committed to the realization of the right to food on the premise that everyone has a fundamental right to be free from hunger. The failure of governance and inattention to the poorest and the most marginalized constitutes the denial of right to food. In this backdrop, the right to be free from hunger is interpreted as the right of an individual who must be supplied with food when s/he cannot obtain it.