from Right to Food, 19-05-2008

  Right to Food News from Mozambique
Mozambique advances on all fronts and approves a ‘Right to Food Strategy’

Step by step, Mozambique is advancing on the right to food. Following the right to food unit’s Seven Steps of Implementation, Mozambique is ticking off the boxes one by one. The country's adopted overarching poverty reduction strategy includes rights-based food security as a cross-cutting issue. The latest success is the approval of the revised food security and nutrition strategy in October 2007 that can easily be called the “Right to Food Strategy” of Mozambique. This strategy stipulates food security as a matter of right and calls for the implementation of all human rights principles. But the right to food is much more than a slogan only. The strategy calls for administrative and legal recourse mechanisms and suggests developing a right to food law.

SETSAN, Mozambique’s food security coordination body, and the Ministry of Justice have started the work on a food security law. After an assessment of the existing laws and regulations, the two entities will prepare a first draft in a consultative process. FAO’s support in this endeavour will be key. Not only in the actual drafting of the legislative piece, but also in the wider training and awareness raising. The approval of the Law by June 2009 is an ambitious goal. For that to happen, Government, Parliamentarians and civil society at large must be familiar with the right to food and be conscious of the role of legislation in the fight against hunger. That translates into training, sensitization and capacity building of state institutions and civil society.

From 18 - 20 June 2008, a high-level symposium will kick-off this capacity building campaign. The aim of SETSAN, the organizer of this symposium, is to leap forward with implementing the food security strategy by challenging Government partners and civil society representatives with some of its difficulties. Panels will investigate questions like: How can the cross-cutting nature of the right to food be made a reality? What’s the level of investment needed? The consensus of the symposium will lead to the adoption of a declaration that will guide the way forward. The political will is there, and the country is ripe for this necessary change. But there is no time for complacency; putting the right to food into policy papers is one thing, putting the right into practice another.

More work is needed to get duty bearers and rights holder up to speed and to make the right a reality for those who most need it. Fore more information on SETSAN, please visit the following website
http://www.setsan.org.mz