They also underscored the need for peace, stability and visionary political leadership to formulate necessary policies for making the nations capable to cope with the impacts of climate change in natural resources and food security.[break]
"The next SAARC Summit should call upon all member countries to adopt respective National Food Security Strategy by the end of 2012 to fight food deficit in the region," said Sartaz Aziz, former finance and foreign minister of Pakistan, at the 4th SAARC Business Leaders Conclave on Wednesday.
Aziz further added that food security cannot be ensured only by increasing the availability of food. “We should be able to improve people´s access to food. Food security issue in South Asia cannot be dealt with by addressing poverty alone,” Aziz said, presenting a working paper on ´How to address Food Security Issues in South Asia.´
Despite a massive rise in food production in South Asia, there has been no significant reduction in the number of people suffering from food insecurity. According to a report, over 500 million people or 30 percent of the population of South Asia are still living on less than $1.25 per day.
Global hunger index released in 2010 showed that South Asian countries fare poorly in the fight against hunger. The report ranks Bangladesh at 68th, India at 67th, Nepal at 56th, Pakistan at 52th, and Sri Lanka at 39th position.
Aziz also suggested that the SAARC member states increase rural poor´s access to land and livestock, enhance educational opportunities, agriculture output and improve nutrition to alleviate poverty and reduce food deficit.
Minister for Environment and Forest of Bangladesh, Dr Hasan Mahmud, said it is high time the SAARC member countries formulated concrete policies to boost food production as the region is increasingly suffering from food insecurity.
"We have to make more investment in researches to develop climate change-resistant crop varieties and bring down the use of imported fossil fuel by shifting to wind and solar energy to bring down cost of food production," said Mahmud.
Gyanendra Lal Pradhan, executive member of SAARC Chambers of Commerce and Industry, said the region is failing to harness hydropower potential. Though the region holds potential to generate 450,000 MW of hydropower, hardly, 10 percent of it has been exploited so far.
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