WFP walks to end hunger (11/6/09)

THE National Co-ordinator of the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP), Mr Michael Nsowah, has pledged to obtain all food items for the programme from small-scale farmers in the country.
This forms part of efforts adopted by the programme to aggressively pursue the objective of Home Grown School Feeding.
He said this during the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP)’s annual global fundraising and advocacy walk dubbed: “End hunger-Walk the World” in Accra.
Mr Nsowah said despite the GSFP’s challenges, it remained the NEPAD model for poverty reduction in Africa, and could increase school attendance and enrolment as well as act as an effective outlet for food produced by the Ghanaian farmers.
He said the current global economic crises, preceded by last year’s increase in fuel and food prices had created anxiety about a resurgence of soaring hunger among the world’s most vulnerable.
He said following the new challenges facing the global community, there was the need for Ghana to work extra hard to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) related to reducing hunger and improving health and education by 2015.
Mr Nsowah said the debilitating effects of hunger were sometimes underestimated and added that the effects were tragic for individuals and staggering for nations.
“People who have experienced and survived hunger in childhood may have their minds permanently dulled, limiting their ability to analyse situations and to fully pursue their livelihoods,” he stated.
The Head of Programmes of the WFP, Ms Sibi Lawson-Marriott, said recent surveys had shown that the number of malnourished children living Ghana was declining.
She said the country had to be commended because of its efforts to ensure that children who were the most vulnerable were being fed.
The walk, which started from the Golden Tulip Hotel and ended at the Accra Shopping Mall, sought to raise awareness on the issue of hunger, particularly among children and raise funds to address the challenge.
From Tamale, Vincent Amenuveve reports that the Deputy Northern Regional Minister, Mr Moses Mabengba addressed participants after the walk to end hunger.
The Deputy Minister noted that Ghana’s ability to achieve the 2015 goals of reducing hunger and improving health indicators has been linked to the country’s ability to sustain food-based safety net programmes.
Mr Mabengba said the programmes must be specially targeted at vulnerable children in schools and pre-schools and pregnant women across the country.
He noted that the effect of hunger particularly on the Intelligence Quotient (IQ) of children could permanently make such children dull and limited in analysing situations and pursuing their livelihoods.
“Most people focus on hunger’s physical manifestations such as emaciation of famine-affected population and the small stature of chronically malnourished people but the most damaging impact is on the IQ,” he pointed out.
According to him, “a vicious cycle can be created where hungry children become damaged adults with limited opportunities and capacities and end up having hungry children of their own”.
He, therefore, stressed the need for “targeted interventions in nutrition and learning to promote a virtuous cycle of good nutrition and learning through generations”.
The minister, however, pointed out that the current global economic crisis preceded by last year’s fuel and food price increases had created anxiety about a resurgence of soaring hunger among the world’s most vulnerable.
The Head of the WFP Sub-office in Tamale, Mr Ahmed Saeed, indicated that his outfit had purchased food items from farmers in Ghana worth millions of Ghana cedis to help eliminate hunger among children in deprived communities.
He, however, observed that in spite of these interventions some children in Ghana still went to bed hungry.
“We are resolute in our will and confident in our collective ability to feed those who are hungry and to protect those who are now at greater risk of hunger because of global events and poverty,” Mr Saeed stressed.



CAPTION: Some participants of the World Food Programme’s walk.