'Poverty and social injustice breed conflicts'

Seminar highlights startling food insecurity, calls for improving internal management.

ISLAMABAD: Speakers at a media briefing on Wednesday pointed out that poverty and social injustice were among the major reasons of extremism and conflicts in Pakistan.

The discussion on “Relationship between food insecurity, poverty, extremism and conflict” was organised by Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) in collaboration with United States Institute of Peace (USIP) at National Press Club here on late Tuesday.

A significant representation from media was observed at the event.

Speaking at the occasion, Moeed Yusuf of USIP said that we should learn from experiences of other countries which improved their internal management and resolved internal conflicts and subsequently progressed without needlessly relying on foreign countries to help them progress.

“Corruption has become a norm in Pakistan and without individual self-accountability it is impossible to develop a balanced society in Pakistan,” he added.

Dr Abid Qaiyum Suleri, executive director of SDPI, gave a detailed presentation on social dimension of food insecurity. He highlighted key findings of recently launched Food Insecurity Report 2009, which has been jointly published by World Food Programme, SDPI and Sustainable Development Commission. “The results show that food insecurity at the household, district, provinces and country levels became more severe as compared to 2003 and more particularly after ongoing massive floods in the country,” he said.

Suleri said that 80 out of 131 (61 per cent) districts were food-insecure in Pakistan before the recent floods, adding that in terms of population, 48.6 per cent were food insecure with varying degrees of food insecurity.

He said there was interconnectedness between individual, national, regional and global security. “Poverty and hunger were a security concern as a strong linkage between food security, hunger, poverty, and vulnerability to disasters can be established,” Suleri added.

He underlined the need that the citizens should challenge the ‘fundamental paradigm of state which was focusing more on non-development expenditures such as debt-servicing, defence, and day-to-day administration. “Very little was left for development and people,” he said. During an interactive question-answer session the media persons and experts held a detailed discussion on various issues.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 16^th, 2010.