It was really interesting to hear Myrna Romero Arana for the National Council of Food and Nutrition of Bolivia (CONAN). Her country is working on increasing food production since urbanisation led to losses in the agricultural sector with consequent raise in imports. A recently implemented public bank has started credit programs which follow up the trends in production and demand the redistribution of it in the region of origin. National production must first of all benefit national markets, and only subsequently go to export, in order for food prices not to dramatically increase.

Uganda presented its Food and Nutrition Policy and Strategy.  The focus was on coordination mechanisms. It was interesting to learn that a monthly Forum was put in action to serve as a place to formulate and monitoring food programs as well as sectoral working groups dealing with more concrete subjects. I really appreciated the way by which the panellist stressed the need for mainstreaming the right to food in other public policy sectors and I found particularly interesting the emphasis put on the need for a clear attribution of competences in the hands of public officers.

The Indian lessons were, as usual, very interesting for all. New challenges were presented  this time: the need to universalize the food service in all regions of India, the lack of effective compliance of some of the 55 orders emitted by the Supreme Court of Justice during the current year, the need to enlarge the public budget assigned for food policies, and the need to increase the level of rural employment. Christian Courtis, member of the International Commission of Jurists of Geneva, stressed that it was important to see the Indian case as something extraordinary that, however, shouldn’t be a model for all future cases. He argued that justice should resolve violations but not replace governmental policies.

The already mentioned Bolivian case served also to launch an important debate: the need to harmonize national and international strategies in order to avoid contradictions and negative effects for the local production and customs. The Indian delegation supported this motion. In addition, it was interesting to hear the proposal of a global food strategy by which all actors would assume a shared responsibility.

The closing session was headed by Hafez Ganem. The panellists of the afternoon were Olivier de Schutter, Barbara Ekwall, Aida Libombo for Mozambique, Lorena Pereira for Guatemala, Asbjorn Eide, profesor of the University of Oslo and Martin Wolpold-Bosien, representing FIAN. Each of them shared wit us their own lessons learned from the Forum and agreed that it had been an enriching experience in addressing current food challenges.

Barbara Ekwall, Coordinator of the Right to Food Unit, recognized that the process towards the implementation of the right to food was slow and thus stressed the importance of soft law instruments such as the Right to Food Guidelines. According to her, these tools are the basis for deeper changes.

I found the suggestion of professor George Kent very interesting in inviting all of us to analyse the hunger challenge not only as a legal responsibility but above all, as a moral one. On the other side, Hafez Ganem proposed to work more in better communicating the right to food message to everyone, not only lawyers.

It is important to say that all participants showed dedication to the realization of the right to food and in that sense, the debates reached a fruitful and constructive level of discussion. Positive and negative aspects of national experiences were presented along with challenges faced in the implementation of programmes.

All participants throughout the three days showed commitment to continue working on this common cause. The work done by the Right to Food Unit was almost unanimously congratulated. In actual fact the project conducted by the Unit led to the development of effective food policies and strategies as well as good instruments for cohesion and exchange among different sectors of society.