Mr. Moses Bukari Mabengba, Deputy Northern Regional Minister has appealed to Ghanaians to work extra hard to increase productivity to be able to face the current global crisis.
He said working extra hard would help reduce hunger and improve health and education in the country.
He explained that hunger was causing chronically malnourished population and damaging to the Intelligent Quotients (IQ) of people, thereby reducing the impact of the human resource base of a country.
Mr. Mabengba made the appeal when he addressed participants who had walked for about two hours through the principal streets of Tamale on Sunday, to raise funds to support the fight against hunger in the world.
The World Food Programm organized the walk, which is the seventh to be held in Ghana with this year's theme being: "End Hunger, Walk the World 2009".
Some carried placards which read; "one in seven people", "adults and children go to bed hungry each night", "hunger could cause war, help avoid it", "The global financial crisis is hitting the poorest of the poor hardest", "hunger and poverty claim 25,000 lives everyday", among others.
Mr Mabengbe called for redoubling of efforts to maintain food-based safety-net programmes for the vulnerable children in schools, and for those yet to be born.
He said a vicious cycle could be created where hungry children become damaged adults with limited opportunities and capacities, who end up having hungry children of their own.
Mr. Ahmed Saeed, Head of the Tamale Sub-office of the WFP said though the global financial crisis had hit the richest countries in the world harder, children in Ghana were eating well, learning and growing better, adding that "recent surveys show that the number of malnourished children living in the country had reduced".
He assured parents that the WFP will collectively help them in their efforts at feeding their families through the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP).
Mr. Saeed said the WFP will continue to buy foods produced in Ghana for schools to accelerate the School Feeding Programme, thereby reducing hunger and malnourishment in the country.