Right to Food Thematic Study 1, 2014.

This Thematic Study reviewed the existing food security and nutrition (FSN) policy documents to determine the extent to which the designs of these policies have right to food underpinnings. Even after the Right to Food Guidelines were endorsed by most countries the right to food underpinnings of the FSN policy designs, with notable exceptions, tend to be weak. This tends to be true more for FSN policies in Africa and Asia, even though a few exceptions there can be found.

Current FSN policies in Latin America and the Caribbean have the right to food more firmly integrated in their designs, in some cases with transformative qualities with respect to the right to food. A more complete assessment study should identify the facilitating or limiting factors that help explain these inter-regional differences. Currently more examples of FSN policy designs that have some right to food underpinnings may be found as compared to prior to 2005.  

FSN policies increasingly include guiding principles for policy implementation that are in part human rights-based. Participation and gender equality are often included. However, what is missing in the policy designs are specific actions to ensure that the conditions exist for the implementation of these principles.

In order to strengthen the right to adequate food underpinnings of future FSN policy designs national governments should be encouraged to formulate food security and nutrition policies that are in line with the state obligation to facilitate the progressive realization of the right to adequate food. National governments should review and periodically update the design of existing FNS policies with the objective to turn these policies into effective instruments that contribute to the protection and realization of the right to adequate food. With the aim of strengthening the right to food underpinnings of FSN policy designs, a complete right to food assessment should be undertaken, which covers an analysis of the FSN situation, as well as the legal, policy and institutional frameworks relevant to the right to food, to ensure that the right to food contents of FSN policies are evidence-based. The FSN situation analysis needs to focus more on identifying and characterizing the most vulnerable groups and on drawing out the structural inequities in FSN outcomes. Greater and more effective participation in the formulation (and implementation) of FSN policies by the human rights community, specifically any human rights institution that may exist as well as civil society organizations that focus on human rights, should contribute to strengthening the right to food underpinnings of FSN policies.