States can set benchmarks as mid-term goals against which to monitor achievements and progress over time. In applying human rights principles, benchmarks are important as part of mechanisms with which rights holders can hold duty bearers accountable for poor progress and lack of achievement. Benchmarks can be formulated in relation to outcome, structural and process indicators, and are usually expressed as a quantitative and verifiable goal to be achieved at a specific point in time. Benchmarks should be assessed periodically to examine whether states' capacities and use of available resources are adequately taken into consideration, i.e. whether the set benchmarks are realistic, or require adjustments (either up or down).

    The three pillars of the core content of the right to adequate food consists of:

• Economic and physical access to food;
• Food availability;
• Food adequacy.

• the diet must meet all nutritional requirements, both quantitatively (energy content) as well as qualitatively (protein, vitamin and mineral content);
• it must be safe for human beings to eat and not cause any disease; and
• the food must be culturally acceptable to those who consume it.

    The state has the primary responsibility with respect to the realisation of human rights. State agents at all levels and in all capacities are primary duty bearers with respect to the realisation of the right to adequate food. These range from the head of state, to civil servants in public institutions, to public service providers (teachers in public schools, medical personnel in public hospitals, health centres and posts, extension agents, public safety personnel), and anyone else who is an employee of a public institution. These individuals have a delegated duty, and the state can be held accountable for any act or omission that these individuals undertake in their official capacity. Non-state actors (civil society, private sector) may acquire duties when the state imposes such duties by means of national legislation and regulations. For example, to protect consumers, the state may put into force certain food safety standards and impose duties on the private food industry to adhere to those food standards in producing and marketing certain foods.

    All human rights are characterised as either political, civil, economic, social or cultural rights. The political and civil rights are defined in the 1966 International Covenant on Political and Civil Rights, and include the right to self-determination, the right to freedom of opinion and expression, the right of association and assembly, the right to name and nationality, and the right to freedom from arbitrary interference with privacy, family and home. Economic, social and cultural rights are defined in the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and further through interpretations by the ICESCR as expressed in General Comments. Economic, social and cultural rights include: right to adequate living conditions, right to education, right to health, right to adequate food, right to housing, right to work, right to social security, right to participate in cultural life, and right to benefit from science and intellectual property.

    Participation and empowerment are closely linked, the latter makes the former meaningful. Empowerment means that an individual has the capacity to make effective choices, and thus has the capacity to effectively translate choices into desired actions and outcomes. The individual's capacity to make effective choices is conditioned by: (i) ability to make meaningful choices, recognising the existence of options, and (ii) the opportunities that exist in the person's formal and informal environment. Empowerment can either refer to a process: are efforts being made to empower people?, or to the outcome of a process: have people effectively been empowered?

    Food security exists when all people have, at all times, physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary energy requirements and food preferences for an active and healthy life. Household food security means that all members of the household are food secure. Food insecurity exists when people lack adequate access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food for normal growth and development, and for active and healthy lives. Household food insecurity means that one or more members of the household are food insecure.

    Food insecurity can be caused by unavailability of food, lack of sufficient purchasing power to acquire and/or produce sufficient, safe and nutritious foods. At the household level, inappropriate acquisition and distribution, and/or inadequate use of foods can contribute to food insecurity of one or more members. People or households that suffer from periods of lack of access to sufficient, safe and nutritious foods, while having adequate access at other times, are still considered food insecure. Food insecurity can thus be chronic (at most or at all times), seasonal, or transitory when an extraordinary event occurs that negatively affects food access after which adequate access is restored (see Vulnerability to food insecurity).

    When people or households suffer from food insecurity, their right to adequate food is not realised, even if the food insecurity condition is temporary. Moreover, food security does not equate the realization of the right to food. A person may be food secure but have his/her right violated in cases where, for intance, aspects like cultural acceptability, dignity, recourse mechanisms are not ensured.

    In many countries, women and girls are more often victims of rights violations. Although men and women are generally equal before the law, women are usually discriminated against in access to food, land, credit and other means of production. Applying a gender sensitive approach means going beyond equality in the legal system, by considering the differences in living conditions and interests of women and men from the outset, and in a consistent manner, when formulating and implementing a social policy, programme or project. This also implies the promotion of compensatory measures in order to achieve de facto equality in accordance with Article 4, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

    Hidden hunger refers to sustained deficiency in vitamin and mineral intake in relation to a person's requirements. The most prevalent deficiencies globally are in intakes of iron, iodine and vitamin A. It is estimated that worldwide about 2 billion people suffer from iron deficiency (the vast majority are women and children), over 1.5 billion from iodine deficiency and 800 million from vitamin A deficiency. These deficiencies can be present even when daily energy intakes are adequate. It is referred to as "hidden" because often there are no visible signs (in mild to moderate cases), and the persons suffering from these deficiencies are unaware or do not have enough information to identify physical symptons associated with these deficiencies (in more severe cases).

    The human rights principles are: (i) universality and inalienability; (ii) indivisibility; (iii) inter-dependence and inter-relatedness; (iv) non-discrimination and equality; (v) participation and inclusion; (vi) accountability and the rule of law.

• Universality and inalienability: Human rights are universal and inalienable. All people everywhere in the world are entitled to them. The human person cannot voluntarily give them up. Nor can others take them away from him or her. As stated in Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights".
• Indivisibility: Human rights are indivisible. Whether of a civil, cultural, economic, political or social nature, they are all inherent to the dignity of every human person. Consequently, they all have equal status as rights, and cannot be ranked, a priori, in a hierarchical order.
• Inter-dependence and Inter-relatedness: The realisation of one right often depends, wholly or in part, upon the realisation of others. For instance, realisation of the right to health may depend, in certain circumstances, on the realisation of the right to education or of the right to information.
• Equality and Non-discrimination: All individuals are equal as human beings and by virtue of the inherent dignity of each human person. All human beings are entitled to their human rights without discrimination of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, ethnicity, age, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, disability, property, birth or other status as explained by the human rights treaty bodies.
• Participation and Inclusion: Every person and all peoples are entitled to active, free and meaningful participation in, contribution to, and enjoyment of civil, economic, social, cultural and political development in which human rights and fundamental freedoms can be realised.
• Accountability and Rule of Law: States and other duty-bearers are answerable for the observance of human rights. In this regard, they have to comply with the legal norms and standards enshrined in human rights instruments. Where they fail to do so, aggrieved rights-holders are entitled to institute proceedings for appropriate redress before a competent court or other adjudicator in accordance with the rules and procedures provided by law.

    Hunger has been referred to as an uneasy or painful sensation which is caused by a recurrent and involuntary lack of access to sufficient food . Hunger can lead to malnutrition (defined below) and is usually the consequence of food insecurity. In the US, a distinction has been made when measuring food insecurity and hunger, i.e. people may be food insecure without being hungry.

    In this case, food insecurity refers to a continuous concern about acquiring sufficient food that is not necessarily associated with a sharp reduction in food intake. In developing countries, the reduction in food intake as a result of food insecurity among the poor normally means that people are hungry. Hunger has also been described in terms of degrees of severity, i.e. the extent to which people are forced to reduce their daily food intake.

    People suffer from malnutrition when they have a physiological condition that may be caused by a consistently deficient intake of energy, protein, and/or of vitamins and minerals, or by a consistently excessive intake of these, relative to their requirements. Malnutrition thus refers comprehensively to all forms of under- or over-nourishment, and/or of consistent deficiency in the intake of proteins, vitamins and minerals.

    Any discrimination in access to food, and in access to means and entitlements to acquire food, on the grounds of race, colour, sex, language, age, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status with the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the equal enjoyment or exercise of economic, social and cultural rights constitutes a violation of the ICESCR. Policies, programmes and institutions need to be examined carefully to detect discriminatory outcomes and effects that they may produce when benefiting certain groups at the expense of others.

    Strategies to eliminate discrimination in access to food should include: guarantees of full and equal access to economic resources, particularly for women, including the right to inheritance and the ownership of land and other property, credit, natural resources and appropriate technology; measures to respect and protect self-employment and work which provides a remuneration ensuring a decent living for wage earners and their families; maintaining registries on rights to land.

    Nutrition security means that a person enjoys at all times an optimal nutrition condition for an active and healthy life. An optimal nutrition condition is relative to age, desired life style, and physiological condition, and covers both quantitative (dietary energy requirements) and qualitative (protein, mineral and vitamin requirements) aspects. Persons who at no time, or who at some times only, enjoy an optimal nutrition condition, are nutrition insecure.

    As with food insecurity, nutrition insecurity can be either chronic (at all or at most times), seasonal or transitory. Persons can be nutritionally insecure due to food insecurity, or due to non-food causes, such as poor health and sanitation conditions that result in certain diseases that affect the absorption of food by the body. Particularly relevant to the nutrition security of small children are child care and feeding practices that negatively affect children's nutrition condition. Nutrition security means the enjoyment of the right to adequate food and of the right to health

    These obligations refer to states complying with their obligations to respect, protect and fulfil rights.

    The obligation on the part of the state to work towards the right to adequate food (and other ESCR) progressively being enjoyed by increasing numbers of people constitutes an obligation of result.

    Outcome indicators provide summary information on the extent of realisation of a human right. These indicators assess the status of the population's enjoyment of a right, and thus measure the results achieved by means of policies, programmes, projects, community actions, and others. Outcome indicators relate more directly to the realisation of a right, i.e. a "substantive right" with a clearly defined content. Indicators that measure the various components of the core content of the right to adequate food are outcome indicators. As there may be a series of processes contributing to a single outcome, it becomes useful to make a distinction between process and outcome indicators. Example: if adequacy of dietary intake is used as an outcome indicator, it might be useful to look at process indicators on food safety, income generation, nutrition education, that are linked to producing this particular outcome. Outcome indicators measure the state's obligations of result.

    Participation is a fundamental principle for human rights and should be applied when the rights are being interpreted and developed as well as when states develop their programmes aimed at realising the rights. When stakeholder groups participate in policy formulation, programmes and in decisions related to human rights, it is more likely that people's needs and demands are appropriately met. The right to participation can take many forms: political participation (political rights), social participation (civil rights) and economic participation (economic, social and cultural rights).

     Process indicators provide information on the processes by which human rights are implemented, specifically through laws, policies, programmes, regulatory measures, etc. These indicators are designed to assess how, and to what degree, activities necessary to attain objectives specific to certain rights are put into practice, and the progress of these activities over time. Process indicators capture: (i) the quality of a process in terms of its adherence to the key human rights principles (is the process non-discriminatory, accountable, participatory and empowering, and can duty bearers be held accountable?), and (ii) the type of policy instruments, and public resource allocations and expenditures invested to further the progressive realisation of a specific right. As with structural indicators, process indicators measure aspects of the state obligations of conduct.

Examples within the context of the right to adequate food include: land and environmental laws conducive to efficient food production by smallholder farmers, food safety and consumer protection laws and regulations, food and nutrition programmes targeted at vulnerable population groups, rural infrastructure programmes, targeted food prices subsidies, and improving access to food among the resource-poor by means of income generation programmes.

    Unfortunately, in most countries there are hungry people - worldwide over 800 million. Their right to adequate food is violated. Yet it is highly unrealistic to think that measures can be put into place immediately so that hungry people can start enjoying their right to adequate food. So the notion of "progressive realisation" means that over time the number of hungry people continuously diminishes. It is incumbent on states to take actions, and put in place measures, so that the number of hungry people diminishes over time at a rate that is commensurate with maximum efficiency in the allocation of available resources. When states periodically report to the CESCR on progress with the realisation of ESCR, they need to show that the progress is in line with the best and maximum use of national resources. There are two particular rights the realization of which is not subject to the standard of progressive realization: non discrimination and freedom from hunger. For these two, state obligations take immediate effect.

    All members of society hold rights upon birth, and for the rest of their lives. Through empowerment and participation, rights holders can become rights claimants, i.e. understand their rights and have access to the means to claim those rights. Rights may also legitimately be claimed on behalf of rights holders by their representatives, when the former do not have adequate access to the means to claim rights. Claiming rights when rights are violated or not enjoyed also requires that institutions, such as courts, a human rights commission, and/or a national office of the ombudsperson, are in place and effectively functioning. Such claims mechanisms have real meaning when their decisions can be enforced effectively.

    According to international human rights law, the state has legal and moral duties or obligations towards the country's inhabitants. These duties and obligations are usually spelt out in international agreements and covenants to which the state is a party, and these may or may not be incorporated in domestic law. Three levels of state obligations are distinguished with respect to the realisation of the right to adequate food:

• obligation to respect
• obligation to protect
• obligation to fulfil

    Structural indicators measure whether or not appropriate legal, regulatory and institutional structures are in place that are considered necessary or useful for the realisation of a human right. This refers to national law, constitutions, regulations and legal, policy frameworks and institutional organisation and mandates. Examples include: the legal status of the right to food, and of related rights such as to health and to education, mandates of institutions with responsibilities for the core content of the right to adequate food, food security and nutrition policies and strategies, etc. Most structural indicators are qualitative in nature, and a number of structural indicators may be evaluated by a simple "yes" or "no" answer, e.g. if a particular law or policy is in place or not. However, sometimes these yes/no answers need follow-up questions and additional clarification, to capture qualitative dimensions of the law or policy. For example, whether the food security and nutrition policy specifically targets food insecure and vulnerable groups, and if policy measures are adequate to address the underlying causes of food insecurity and vulnerability in those groups. Structural indicators monitor the state obligations of conduct, i.e. the effort the government has expanded towards the realisation of a human right.

    Undernourishment means a level of food intake with an energy content that consistently fails to meet the dietary energy requirements of a person.

     Dietary energy requirements of an individual are determined by the energy needs for normal body functions, and by energy needs to maintain good health and normal activity. Dietary energy requirements vary with age, gender and life style. They also vary between individuals of the same age and gender, as life styles and activity levels vary. At the same time, as life styles and activity levels change over time for the same person, so do her/his daily energy requirements, including for short periods of time, such as in the case of seasonal agricultural labour.

     Household level survey data on food intake are often not available at country level. To estimated the daily energy intake for a country, FAO uses the data from food balance sheets to measure the daily energy available for human consumption, or daily energy supply (DES), which is thus an indirect measure of daily energy intake. The prevalence of undernourishment, or food deprivation, is then estimate for countries by applying mathematical formulas to approximate the distribution in the population of daily energy requirements and of the daily energy supply . Per capita DES and the prevalence of undernourishment are used to monitor over time the country's food security position.

    People suffer from undernutrition when they are undernourished, and/or when they poorly absorb, or when their bodies make poor use of, the dietary energy, protein, vitamin and mineral contained in the foods they consume. Poor absorption most is frequently due to the person suffering from one or more diseases. For example, when children suffer from high worm loads, they poorly absorp and utilise energy, proteins and minerals and vitamins, and often suffer from undernutrition, even when their daily intake of these is in line with their normal, worm-free requirements. Undernutrition has thus food- and non-food causes, which in turn points to the importance of enjoying both the right to adequate food and of the right to health.

    Vulnerability refers to the presence of factors that place people at risk of becoming food insecure or malnourished, including factors that affect people's capacity to deal with, or resist, the negative impact of risk factors on people's access to adequate food and/or on their nutrition conditions. Vulnerability thus combines exposure to one or more risk factors, and the capacity to withstand the effects of that risk or those risks. People or households that are exposed to certain risks, but have adequate capacity to deal with those risks and maintain or quickly recover adequate access to food, are not considered vulnerable. On the other hand, people or households that have little or no capacity to safeguard their access to food, even when confronted with a minimal risk factor, are considered vulnerable or even highly vulnerable.

     One can think of vulnerability in terms of degrees, depending on the combination of: (i) the extent of exposure to risks (and the types of risks) and (ii) the capacity to compensate for the effects of those risks on the adequacy of food access or on one's nutrition conditions. Food insecure people or households are also vulnerable, because any exposure to a risk will further aggravate their food insecurity condition.

     External risk factors to which vulnerable groups may be exposed are far-ranging. They include: (a) climatic and environmental changes: droughts, floods, environmental degradation, deforestation, (b) demographic and economic changes: rapid population growth, sharply rising consumer prices or falling producer prices, (c) health and diseases: HIV/AIDS pandemic, high malaria incidence, plant pests, (d) wars and armed conflicts, and (e) laws, policies and regulations that adversely affect the resource-poor.