Vision
Full realization of the human right to adequate food, through it being respected, protected and fulfilled everywhere.
Strategy
The Right to Food Unit works on the implementation of the human right to adequate food, using the Voluntary Guidelines. The short term strategy of the Right to Food Unit is to focus on the following areas:
- Make the right to food and human rights based approaches understood and used by all FAO staff members in their work;
- Develop methods and instruments to assist stakeholders in the implementation of the right to food;
- Inform and educate to raise awareness and understanding by rights holders, duty bearers, civil society and the general public about the right to food
- Support initial national implementation of the right to food and the Guidelines
Mandate
FAO's Strategic Framework 2000-2015 stipulates that the Organization is expected to take into full account "progress made in further developing a rights-based approach to food security" in carrying out its mission "helping to build a food-secure world for present and future generations".
When the Council adopted the Voluntary Guidelines in November 2004, it also called for adequate follow up to the Guidelines through mainstreaming and the preparation of information, communication and training material.
The right to food was later defined in programming documentation as one of nine FAO priorities.
Implementation Goal
Every country in the world will have:
-Strong Voices:
- Public awareness and understanding of the right to food
- Civil society actively promoting the right to food
- Capacity of rights holders to claim their rights and of duty bearers to carry out their obligations
-Right Targets:
- Access to sufficient information about right to food issues
- Capacity to properly target those most in need
- Transparent, clear and fair eligibility criteria for rights-holders to receive any social assistance
-Accessible Justice:
- Right to food incorporated in laws
- Relevant sectoral laws consistent with the right to food
- Independent recourse mechanisms for the right to food
-Effective Action:
- Government officials with authority, knowledge and responsibility to implement the right to food
- Right to food incorporated in policies and strategies
- Efficient and functional coordination of different sectors and levels of government
-Durable Impact:
- Continuous monitoring of the state of right to food realization and effective information dissemination of the results to rights holders and duty bearers
- Evaluation of right to food policies and right to food impact assessments
- Achievable benchmarks towards the goal of full realization of the right to food
Institutional Goal
Every staff member of FAO will have the knowledge, authority and motivation to:
- Advocate for implementation of the right to food at the country level,
- Explain the Right to Food and its implications
- Incorporate a human rights based approach into their technical work, by using the Voluntary Guidelines