The overarching goal of the Guidelines is to enhance the contribution of small-scale fisheries to food security and nutrition and to support the progressive realization of the right to food. Promoting a human rights-based approach, they aim to achieve poverty eradication, equitable development and sustainable resource utilization. The Guidelines seek to achieve this by empowering small-scale fishing communities, including both men and women, to participate in decision-making, enjoy their human rights, and assume responsibilities for sustainable use of fishery resources. The Guidelines seek to give effect to the commitments made at Rio +20 where World leaders committed, among others, to ensure and protect access to fisheries and markets by small-scale fishers and stressed the crucial role of healthy marine ecosystems, sustainable fisheries and sustainable aquaculture for food security and nutrition and in providing for the livelihoods of millions of people. The Guidelines complement and support, in addition to the Code of Conduct for Responsible
Fisheries, other international instruments, in particular the Voluntary Guidelines on Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Contexts of National Food Security (Tenure Guidelines) and the Voluntary Guidelines on the Progressive Realization of the Right to Adequate Food in the Context of National Food Security (Right to Food Guidelines).