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...

On 5 February 2013, a milestone was reached when Uruguay became the tenth country to ratify the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (hereafter the Protocol). In accordance with Article 18 of the Protocol, it enters into force three months after the tenth country has deposited its instrument of accession. In force since 1976, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights will at last have an international monitoring mechanism, which will strengthen the efforts to increase accountability for the violations of all human rights.

What is the relationship between the right to food and investment in agriculture and rural development? How can human rights provide tools for investment plans and projects? These issues were discussed during a parallel session entitled “The Right to Food: How is it relevant to investment in agriculture and rural development?” organized within Investment Days on 18 December 2012. Investment Days are a yearly two-day retreat that bring together colleagues of the FAO’s Investment Centre (TCI), including employees of such related institutions as the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the World Bank to share knowledge and experiences.

Maputo – An important milestone was reached on December 14, 2012, during the II meeting of the Food and Nutrition Security (FNS) cluster held in the amphitheater of the Mozambican Ministry of Agriculture and chaired by His Excellency the Minister of Agriculture José António Pacheco Candugua when SETSAN launched its website from now on available at www.setsan.gov.mz

Dear colleagues,
We are happy to announce that a new Right to Food website is being launched today on Human Rights Day, 10 December. In addition to a new design, improved functionalities and user friendly navigation, this website also displays the diverse work of the Right to Food in FAO.

In the context of the project "Integrating the Right to Adequate Food and Good Governance in National Policies, Legislation and Institutions", a training workshop on monitoring and protecting the right to adequate food was held in Nagarkot, Nepal on 7-9 November 2012. The training workshop marked the beginning of activities in Nepal under the project. It was convened jointly by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Nepal National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), in collaboration with Food-first Information and Action Network (FIAN) Nepal, the Nepal National Women Commission and the Nepal Justice and Rights Institute (JuRi-Nepal).

22 October 2012, Rome – A joint Committee on World Food Security (CFS) side event by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, OHCHR and FAO took place on 19 October 2012 at FAO Headquarters. Under the headline “The transformational power of the right to food: Countries pioneering right to food strategies”, the event focused on national-level experiences of setting up legal and institutional frameworks for the realization of the right to adequate food.

July 2012, Rome (Italy) – A milestone of institutional strengthening was reached on 21 March 2012, when the the Comissão Interministerial da Função Pública approved SETSAN’s Organic Statute which has been made official through the Decree No. 7/2012. The new Statute gives SETSAN juridical status, higher administrative independence - including in the management of human and financial resources, and enjoys an official mandate which protects its coordination role, also in a decentralized structure.

Rio+20 is the short name for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development and will take place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 20 to 22 of June 2012. It is a historic opportunity to define pathways to a sustainable future for mankind. For FAO, “The Future We Want” will not materialize as long as hunger and malnutrition persist, and it will not materialize without sustainable management of agriculture and food systems.

We are pleased to announce the publication of The right to food and global strategic frameworks: The Global Strategic Framework for Food Security and Nutrition (GSF) and the UN Comprehensive Framework for Action (CFA). It shows how the right to adequate food can be integrated into strategic frameworks on food security and nutrition as an overarching goal, as a principle that guides all steps of implementation, and as a tool to strengthen the capacities of duty-bearers and right-holders to make the human right to adequate food reality for all. Moreover, two fact sheets are available on the issue.