2014 Right to Food and Nutrition Watch launched at FAO
The report highlights the crucial role of civil society in the progress made towards achieving the Right to Adequate Food
8 October 2014, Rome – “Civil society has played a key role in the implementation of the Guidelines and has contribuited to including the Right to Adequate Food in the constitutions of 28 countries,” stated Jomo K. Sundaram, Assistant Director General – Coordinator for Economic and Social Development Department, FAO, during the presentation of the report by The Right to Food and Nutrition Watch Consortium this morning at FAO Headquarters.
The 2014 Watch analyzes the “gains, concerns and struggles,” in the past ten years since the Voluntary Guidelines on the Right to Adequate Food were approved by the FAO Council in 2004. The Guidelines’ objective is to provide practical guidance to Member States on how to focus their efforts on achieving the progressive realization of the Right to Adequate Food in the context of national food security.
Challenges ahead
“There is still much to be done, we cannot accept more than 800 million hungry people in the world today,” said Sundaram. Alejandra Morena, Coordinator of the 2014 Watch, highlighted “the need for political will from the States in order to effectively implement the Right to Adequate Food”.
UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Hilal Elver, insisted on the need to adopt a human rights approach to the issue. “We have to make clear that the Right to Food is a fundamental human right,” she said. “People are the most important element of food policy”.
Available online
The Right to Food and Nutrition Watch is available online in English, Spanish and French. The document deals with policy processes related to the Right to Food, such as the negotiation of principles for responsible agricultural investments and the upcoming Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2), which will be held at FAO from 19 to 21 November 2014.
As is done every year, the Watch gathers various case studies – from Guatemala to Sweden – to show the progress made as well as the main challenges still to be tackled in achieving the Right to Adequate Food.
The Consortium has also made a video to mark the tenth anniversary since the adoption of the Guidelines: “The Right to Food - A People's Struggle”.
