More than 60 Members of Parliament proposed a draft Law on Food Sovereignty and Food and Nutrition Security, for the Right to Food in the Dominican Republic.

The process began in the first half of 2011, when the Inter-institutional Committee for Food and Nutrition Security, composed of the Ministries of Agriculture and Health and the Parliamentary Front Against Hunger, and with the technical support of FAO, WFP, PAHO and UNDP, started the implementation of 8 Regional Forums, with the participation of 543 people related to the area of food, giving their views about the draft law.

A comparative study on best practices and existing legal frameworks in Latin America was also carried out.

With the consultations and the study the draft law was prepared, which was subsequently submitted for consultation -both online and face-to-face-, with the participation of 74 organizations from 25 provinces.

The draft law aims to establish the institutional framework for the formulation and development of Food Sovereignty and Food and Nutrition Security policies as instruments to respect, protect and exercise the right to adequate food in accordance with the principles of human rights.

"This project is the result of a broad consensus among legislators, technicians, officials from various Ministries, social and community organizations, farmers and various groups involved in the production, management and control of food" 
says MP Guadalupe Valdez.

"FAO's contribution to this process is a good example of how, by pooling their resources and capacities at national, regional and global level, FAO can catalyze and facilitate consensus while the process is leaded by the country" 
says Juan Carlos García y Cebolla, Team Leader of the Right to Food Team.

If the law is passed, the Dominican Republic would form part of a growing number of Latin American countries that have food security laws, such as Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala.

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