At the 43rd session of the Human Rights Council (HRC), Ms. Carolyn Rodrigues Birkett, Director of the FAO Office in Geneva, expressed FAO’s deepest appreciation to Ms. Hilal Elver for her tireless efforts towards achieving a world free from hunger and malnutrition, as she concludes her mandate as United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food.

Ms Rodrigues-Birkett recalled that during her mandate Ms. Elver helped to promote the Right to Food globally, including as a member of the Committee on World Food Security's Advisory Group, which is jointly supported by FAO, IFAD and WFP.

Highlighting that conflict zones continue to be the epicenter for the majority of those suffering from hunger with their livelihoods being made worse in many cases by the impacts of climate change, the FAO Director underscored that despite the efforts made, the steady increase in the number of food-insecure people over the last few years, from 815 million in 2016 to 821 million presently, demonstrates that much is still to be done to overcome this challenge.

“FAO will continue to vigorously pursue the eradication of these scourges,” said Ms. Rodrigues-Birkett as she reaffirmed FAO’s commitment and support for the work on the right to food through its normative and technical capacities and utilizing the opportunities presented through the UN Decade on Family Farming; the two Declarations on the Rights of Peasants and Indigenous Peoples, and the upcoming Food Systems Summit to intensify this effort.

The Special Rapporteur has concluded that despite the Sustainable Development Goal of “zero hunger” and malnutrition by 2030, the realization of the right to food remains a distant, if not impossible, reality for far too many.

Read more on FAO work on the Right to Food here.

Interactive Dialogue: Special Rapporteur on Right to Food - 17th Meeting, 43rd Regular Session Human Rights Council. Webcast of the intervention by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Ms. Carolyn Rodrigues Birkett is available here.