Intellectual poverty is worst form of poverty which leads the nations towards sustainable deprivation and only 5% population age group of 18-28 years have access to the higher education with lion share of AIOU students as they were offering distance learning to its degree seekers. Poverty, inequality and food security are the most crucial and persistent problems being faced by humanity and progress towards elimination of poverty and food insecurity has generally been far from satisfactory. It was stated by UAF VC Prof. Dr. Iqrar Ahmad Khan addressing the participants of International Symposium on sustainable rural development and food security as chief guest here in new senate hall on Saturday morning.

UAF VC Prof. Dr. Iqrar Ahmad Khan, Executive Director SDPI Dr. Abdil Qaiyum Suleri, Dr. Urs Gieser and other participate in an International Symposium sustainable rural development and food security

Dr. Iqrar Ahmad Khan told that Pakistan was ranked 125th out of 169 countries in the human development index ranking for 2010 and its current HDI value (0.490) places us in the medium human development category. He said though Pakistan has undergone a tremendous progress during the last 50 years in per acre agricultural productivity, per capita income and social sector development but challenges and population multiplied manifold and when we translate the productivity with per unit of water, labor and energy cost, access to primary, higher education and other means hence much to be done to meet the daunting challenges. He told that UAF has a very mature system and multi disciplinary curriculum “we are very proud of our curriculum as it is now translated into policy of numerous national and international organizations” he added.

Dr. Ahmad expressed his concerns over the existence of 24 universities in federal capital saying out of 70 public sector universities of the country, all institutions of higher learning were established in big cities which restrict the access and affordability of higher education to a larger segment of population which resides in rural and far flung areas of the country. Dr. Iqrar Ahmad Khan told that there is a strong relationship and interrelation between policy making, politics and poverty which happened to be dealt with individuals rather than investing and making necessary arrangements for large segment of the population. Dr. Ahmed urged the students to bet benefit from the offers come forth by Swiss organizations in R&D sector and mutual research endeavors.

Earlier delivering the keynote address executive director Sustainable Development Policy Institute, Islamabad Dr. Abdil Qaiyum Suleri told that state of food security in Pakistan has deteriorated since 2003 as in 80 out of 113 districts of Pakistan, conditions for food security are inadequate with half of the population doesn’t have access to sufficient food for an active and healthy life at all times.  He described the confronting challenges of the country with 6 Fs (Food, fiscal, fuel, functional democracy, frontiers and fragility of climate coupled with flood devastations which affected millions of lives in the country.

UAF VC Prof. Dr. Iqrar Ahmad Khan delivers UAF Golden Jubilee memento to Executive Director SDPI, Islamabad Dr. Abid Suleri during Int. Symposium on Sustainable Rural Development and Food Security

Dr. Suleri was of the view that when individual hunger and poverty turn into collective deprivations it affects the life in many ways and gets an identity, whether creed, gender, class, or nationality always lead to class conflict and ultimately to violence. He termed the PSDP as lubricant towards development but we used to enhance our defense budget and borrowing around 2.5 billion rupees daily to meet its expenditure. Dr. Suleri revealed that after spending millions of dollars on its warfare, the think tank has reached on the conclusion that they must invest on some sort of centre of excellence in Pakistan to reap the benefits of its long term relations with Pakistan.

He termed individual, national, regional and global security inter dependent variables that have tremendous impact on each other so none of the security kind can be ignored as their interconnectedness makes it difficult to address the security of state if security at one of the other levels has been compromised. He told that food security ranking in Pakistan indicates that compromised security at one level compromises security at each of the other levels. He linked the global security with individual, social, national, and regional stability and wellbeing adding that when states fail to provide food, health, education, and justice to its habitants state within states emerge, and people used to look for alternatives means and go for extra ordinary behaviour.

Dr. Suleri was of the view that availability of food, education, and other necessities are not sufficient until and unless we make them available and acceptable with socio-economic, cultural norms. He told that Balachistan is worst in food insecurity and absorption as out of 29 districts 23 were found severely vulnerable.

Earlier Dr. Urs Gieser of Zurich University Switzerland said that knowledge is a prime stimulus towards sustainable development. He emphasized for making efforts to sustain the productivity tools contribute to the development as structure and social contacts significant role in the development. Dr. Urs told that inequality always lead to aggression as in farming, the people actively operate the land and make labour untiringly used not to have any control on the productivity which is the worst form of discrepancies. Dr. Tanvir Ali Director Division of Education and Extension, Miss Afshan Ahmad from SDPI, Islamabad, Dr. Sher Muhammad and Dr. Babar Shehbaz also spoke on the occasion.