Insecurity
breeds insecurities, and this is what one is observing in South Asia
where the vicious nexus of food insecurity, climate change, and poor
water management are badly affecting the poor besides adding to their
miseries, said Dr Abid Suleri, the head of Sustainable Development
Policy Institute, Pakistan. He was speaking at the 6th South Asian
Summit while chairing the plenary session organized by Institute of
Policy Studies Sri Lanka, in Colombo. 

Referring
to 6 “F” – the mutually non exclusive challenges facing South Asia,
i.e., Food, Fuel, Fiscal, Fragility of Climate, Frontiers, and
Functional Democracy, Dr Abid Suleri said that none of the five
challenges can be addressed leaving out any single (or more) factor
unaddressed. “The South Asian governments must response to these
challenges by prioritization of their current expenditures among debt
servicing, defense, day to day administration, and development,” Dr
Suleri said, adding that among these 4 “Ds” development often gets
neglected, and this skewed spending leads to individual insecurities. 

He further said there are four levels of mutually non exclusive securities that is global, regional, national, and
individual.  “The flawed policy framework being followed in South Asia
ignores individual security as a result of which insecure individuals
jeopardize all other securities.”

Stressing
the need for paradigm shift in development discourses, Dr Suleri said
food and water insecurities must be considered non-traditional security
threats. It is only through this change when we would be able to
strengthen food security and harnesses individual security, he
concluded.