September 03, 2006	Sunday	Sha'aban 9, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, Sept 2: The Human Development Report 2005 attributes the prevailing poverty in South Asia to the excessive expenditures on keeping large armies, nuclearisation and weaponisation of the region, and suggests drastic cuts in defence budgets and redirecting the same to social sector to end the growing insecurity.

The report ‘Human Development in South Asia 2005, Human Security in South Asia’ has been prepared by Mahbubul Haq Human Development Centre.

The report presents a very grim picture of the state of affairs in South Asia especially Pakistan and says the increasing expenditures on defence, militarisation, nuclearisation and large standing armies have been the main reason for the prevailing poverty and insecurity in the region.

“Large armies and nuclear weapons cannot guarantee security. Human security can only be guaranteed by addressing the root causes of conflicts.”

State security cannot be achieved without ensuring the security of people. The region has witnessed some large-scale wars and many smaller conflicts. Yet in this region security of people is increasingly under threat not from outside the borders but from within in the form of conflicts within states/regions due to social, religious or communal causes.

According to the report, inter-state conflicts continue and contribute to escalating defence budgets. The burgeoning nuclear arsenals have increased the stakes of violent political confrontation without guaranteeing regional security in any way.

“Poverty and widening income inequality, food insecurity, the changing nature of employment and unemployment against the backdrop of greater global economic integration underline the economic vulnerability of South Asians.”

The study says crisis of food insecurity in the region is mostly related to low access rather than low availability of food. Severe inequality in land and income distribution prevents the poor from meeting their minimum daily nutritional requirements. The gender disparity in intra-household access to food exacerbates the food insecurity of women. The public food distribution system and other food distribution programmes in South Asia have mostly been inefficient and poorly targeted.

The study expressed the fear that given its shrinking natural resource base and burgeoning population, by the year 2020 South Asia would account for nearly half the developing world’s under-five children suffering from malnutrition.