Accra, 13, May, GNA - Trudy Bower-Pirinis, Representative of the United Nations World Food Programme, Ghana on Saturday said Ghana was among the first countries in sub-Saharan Africa to have reached the first Millennium Development Goal 1(MDG) of halving hunger by 2015, in terms of undernourishment-declining from 5.8 to 2.4 million people.

"We have recently learned that Ghana is also on track to achieve MDG 1 to halve poverty which has fallen from 51.7 per cent in 1991/92 to 28.5 in 2005/ 2006."

Bower-Pirinis was speaking at the annual World Food Programme (WFP)-TNT Hunger: Walk the World event in Accra, to raise funds and awareness about child hunger, in Ghana and worldwide.

She noted that Ghana's challenge was how to achieve growth with equity and to address the stagnant nutritional indicators of children under five, with emphasis on micronutrient deficiencies (vitamin A, iodine, iron), the silent killers of women and children.

She said, this year's Walk the World 2007, the fourth in Ghana was also ongoing in Tamale. Walkers in Ghana would be joining hundreds of thousands of people around the world and in sub-Saharan Africa, from Liberia to Swaziland, South Africa to Uganda.

She said in 2006,, hundreds of thousands of people in sub-Saharan Africa joined the Walk to call for an end to child hunger which affects 400 million children today, adding, "as with every successful movement the core force for change is coming from the very people who know what it is like to be hungry, turning this unique events into global manifestation against child hunger."

Bower-Pirinis noted that, this year's theme was dedicated to Fighting Silent Hunger: "Achieving Universal Salt Iodization" in Ghana, a simple realistic objective that could impact positively on the nutrition of thousand of women and children.

She said, each year 120,000 Ghanaian babies were born with intellectual impairment due to iodine deficiency during pregnancy and that maternal iodine deficiency causes miscarriages and other complications.

"A 2006 MICS report indicated that availability of iodized salt has declined from 74 percent to 51 per cent, of which only 32 percent is properly iodized, despite legislation mandating the iodization of all salt in Ghana for both human and animal consumption.

She noted that although Ghana was recognized as the second largest salt producer in the West Africa sub-region after Senegal, it was not until 2005 that WFP started buying iodized salt locally due to high costs and inefficient business practices.

She said WFP was now procuring all its iodized salt within Ghana and was developing Ghana as a regional supplier to WFP in West Africa. " In 2006, WFP bought two thirds of its commodities from Ghanaian suppliers for value of 1.7 million dollar." She added.

Bower-Pirinis noted that this years Walk proceeds would be used to buy iodized salt from Ghanaian producers for WFP-supported community -based school feeding and supplementary feeding programme where there was limited access and availability of iodized and nutritious food for vulnerable women and children at critical periods of the life cycle. The Deputy Minister of Education, Science and Sport, Mrs. Angelina Baiden Amisssh who cut the tape for the commencement of the walk noted that over one million schools had been captured under the school feeding programme which had encouraged more pupils to enroll into schools. She however, noted that lot of girls and women lack iodine in their system due to menstruation and as such the intake of iodized salt should be encouraged.

Mr Andy Quashie who delivered a speech on behave of the PSI-Salt Project noted that the PSI-Salt project had been contributing to achieving universal Salt Iodization (USI) by making available to all salt producers the technology for iodizing salt through training programme, workshops, research projects and technology transfer. He said all these were based on the principle that, "if we produce only iodized salt, every one would have access to only iodized salt. " This means and end to the silent hunger of iodine deficiency in Ghana and other sister West African countries who depend on us for their supply of salt," he added.

Mr Quarshie noted that since the mode of production was seasonal and not dode by organized groups, PSI-Salt was actively considering the establishment of salt banks, which would be capable of purchasing all salt "winned" by communities, iodizing them adequately before selling them to the salt traders.

He said salt traders were being educated on methods of adequately storing and transporting salt to ensure that it remained iodized until it was used by the final consumer. 13 May 07