ISLAMABAD, Oct 15: With about 850 million people being undernourished worldwide, the World Food Day is being observed today. Pakistan has a good share in this basket with 35 million citizens suffering from malnutrition, majority of them children and women.

Figures released by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations show that 35pc of the world’s undernourished population lives in South Asia as the prevalence of underweight, stunting and wasting is higher in this region than anywhere else in the world.

In Pakistan, the situation has only deteriorated after the last year’s earthquake which exposed over 3 million people in the AJK and NWFP to extreme weather conditions and hunger.

Some 400 million children are still suffering from hunger worldwide that has made a mockery of the global technological developments and steadily multiplying wealth of the rich nations.

To mark the occasion, World Food Programme Executive Director James Morris has appealed to the developed world to give a fairer chance to the world’s 400 million hungry children, many of whose lives were blighted by malnutrition in the first few months after being born.

Hunger in the region (South Asia) fell by 41 million over the last 10 years, yet some 552 million people are still undernourished in the developing and transition economies of Asia and the Pacific, said Jacques Diouf, FAO’s director-general in his message.

There has also been an improvement in the diet of the developing countries of Asia and the Pacific, where per capita daily calorie intake increased between 1990-1992 and 2001-2003. But, still the region is as vulnerable as ever.

The theme chosen for World Food Day and TeleFood this year is “Investing in Agriculture for Food Security”.

In his message, President Gen Pervez Musharraf said the government would invest more for the cause of food security to enable farmers reap maximum benefits and to make the country self-sufficient in food production.

The government would continue to involve the private sector through a proactive public policy to create an attractive environment for higher investment in agriculture, he said.

In his message, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has highlighted the efforts made by FAO towards ensuring food security, alleviating poverty and reducing hunger.

He said the investment in agriculture was of fundamental importance to Pakistan that provided one fourth of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), absorbed 44.8 per cent of the labour force and represented 70 per cent of the export earnings.

To boost investment in agriculture sector, the prime minister said the government had allocated 33 per cent more funds to agriculture in the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP).

“Our policy focus remains on investment in human resource development, research and infrastructure and generation of employment in the field of agriculture,” Mr Aziz said.

Several projects had been undertaken to realize the policy objectives and improve productivity. In order to save water losses, a mega project had been launched with an amount of Rs66 billion that would help to brick-line 87,000 watercourses within four years. Another mega project costing Rs16 billion would be started this year for improving water use efficiency and crop productivity.

Federal Agriculture Minister Sikandar Hayat Bosan had also issued a similar message highlighting the efforts of Pakistani government for ensuring food security.

The FAO director general in his message received here had said that agriculture had contributed to human civilisation by improving nutrition and living standards. But, despite the progress achieved in agriculture, more than 850 million remained hungry and poor.

“Our greatest challenge is to reach the World Food Summit and first UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to halve by 2015 hunger and poverty worldwide,” he said.

In his statement the WFP executive director has said that the impact of hunger and malnutrition was often severe for children. New research had shown yet again that the rapid development of the brain during the early months and years of life was crucial and influenced learning, behaviour and health throughout the life cycle. Hunger negatively affected the brain development of children, setting back their chances of success in life.

Given that 70 per cent of brain development occurred in the first two years of the life, malnutrition in early childhood could have a devastating effect, Morris said.