from Right to Food, 05-02-2009

  High Level Meeting on Food Security for All

On the 26th and 27th of January 2009, Madrid hosted the High Level Meeting on Food Security for All, convened by the Prime Minister of Spain and the United Nations Secretary-General. The main objective of the Meeting was to follow up on the commitments made at the High-Level Conference on World Food Security held in Rome on 3-5 June 2008 and discuss new ways to move forward towards the achievement of the First Millennium Development Goal.

The meeting gathered actors from all sectors including governments, civil society, trade unions, academia, and multilateral organisations. The broad and active participation of those important actors facilitated the integration of the right to food as an important framework for eradicating hunger and malnutrition. Both, the final statement of the High Level Meeting and the final speech of the UN Secretary General endorsed the right to food and its main principles as an important basis for achieving sustainable solutions in the fight against hunger.

“We must continue to meet urgent hunger and humanitarian needs by providing food and nutrition assistance and safety nets, while focusing on improving food production and smallholder agriculture. This is the twin-track approach taken in the Comprehensive Framework for Action. We should be ready to add a third track –the right to food– as a basis for analysis, action and accountability”.

UN Secretary General Mr. Ban Ki-moon, closing remarks at the Madrid Meeting.

In order to have a comprehensive analysis of this important event, you will find below two different evaluations of the outcomes of the Madrid Conference. The first one is an Analysis of the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Mr. Olivier de Schutter and the other is an Evaluation report received by Flavio Valente, Secretary General of FIAN International.

For further information and details of the Meeting, you might be interested in visiting the website: http://www.ransa2009.org