The Right to Adequate Food
Mr Chairperson,
It is my great pleasure to yet again address the Commission on behalf of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations on the subject of the right to adequate food.
Almost five years ago, in November 1996, the World Food Summit gathered in Rome and adopted an ambitious yet realisable goal of halving the number of undernourished people in the world by the year 2015. It reaffirmed the right of everyone to adequate food in conformity with Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the fundamental right of everyone to freedom from hunger. The High Commissioner for Human rights was entrusted with a special mandate to better define the rights related to food, and propose ways for their implementation, a mandate that may now have come to conclusion with the Third Expert Consultation on the Right to Adequate Food held in Bonn last month with the support of Germany.
FAO was pleased to participate in these Consultations, which focused on implementation at the national level of the right to adequate food. Indeed, while the normative content of the right to adequate food and the nature of State obligations have been largely clarified, much work remains to be done on the implementation at the national level. The Consultations provided a valuable contribution to how States can operationalise the right to adequate food through framework legislation, strong food security policies and attention to food rights in the context of poverty alleviation programmes. The Report of the Consultations is being submitted orally to the Commission. We hope that due note will be taken of its contents and recommendations.
FAO was also pleased to establish contacts last year with the new Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. The Organization is committed to continue its cooperation with the Special Rapporteur and strongly supports his suggestion that legislative action is needed. The Organization hopes that the Special Rapporteur will attend relevant FAO meetings.
The implementation of the right to food is only achieved when every woman, man and child has assured and sustainable access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food. FAO statistics suggest that fewer people are undernourished today than a few years ago. The resources and technology exist to ensure that no one should be hungry or malnourished. Today's world food production is sufficient to feed everyone and we expect it to remain so for the foreseeable future. However, progress in increasing access to adequate food is as yet slower than it should be if the World Food Summit target to reduce by half the number of hungry no later than 2015 is to be achieved: The reduction of hunger is far too slow.
Mr Chairperson.
FAO is inviting Heads of State and Government to lead their national delegations to this year's FAO Conference, in order to participate in a global forum called the World Food Summit: Five Years Later. The meeting will provide an opportunity to take stock of achievements since the 1996 Summit and for countries to restate their commitment to actions which will enable them to meet the goal of the Summit. In the months before the Conference, there will be a series of consultations, concentrating mainly on the themes of Fostering the Political Will to Fight Hunger, and Mobilising the necessary resources. In the supporting documentation, prepared by FAO, prominence is given to human rights issues, and particularly to the utility of applying the concept of the Right to Food in formulating programmes to enhance food security.
A similar approach has been followed in The elimination of food insecurity in the Horn of Africa, A strategy for concerted Government and UN agency action, prepared by the Inter-Agency Task Force on the UN response to long-term food security, agricultural development and related aspects in the Horn of Africa, which was chaired by the FAO Director-General.
It is our hope that this Commission will continue to support efforts to work towards achieving the right to adequate food for all.
Thank you Mr Chairperson.