On 5 February 2013, a milestone was reached when Uruguay became the tenth country to ratify the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (hereafter the Protocol). In accordance with Article 18 of the Protocol, it enters into force three months after the tenth country has deposited its instrument of accession. In force since 1976, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights will at last have an international monitoring mechanism, which will strengthen the efforts to increase accountability for the violations of all human rights.

What is the relationship between the right to food and investment in agriculture and rural development? How can human rights provide tools for investment plans and projects? These issues were discussed during a parallel session entitled “The Right to Food: How is it relevant to investment in agriculture and rural development?” organized within Investment Days on 18 December 2012. Investment Days are a yearly two-day retreat that bring together colleagues of the FAO’s Investment Centre (TCI), including employees of such related institutions as the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the World Bank to share knowledge and experiences.

Maputo – An important milestone was reached on December 14, 2012, during the II meeting of the Food and Nutrition Security (FNS) cluster held in the amphitheater of the Mozambican Ministry of Agriculture and chaired by His Excellency the Minister of Agriculture José António Pacheco Candugua when SETSAN launched its website from now on available at www.setsan.gov.mz

Dear colleagues,
We are happy to announce that a new Right to Food website is being launched today on Human Rights Day, 10 December. In addition to a new design, improved functionalities and user friendly navigation, this website also displays the diverse work of the Right to Food in FAO.

In the context of the project "Integrating the Right to Adequate Food and Good Governance in National Policies, Legislation and Institutions", a training workshop on monitoring and protecting the right to adequate food was held in Nagarkot, Nepal on 7-9 November 2012. The training workshop marked the beginning of activities in Nepal under the project. It was convened jointly by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Nepal National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), in collaboration with Food-first Information and Action Network (FIAN) Nepal, the Nepal National Women Commission and the Nepal Justice and Rights Institute (JuRi-Nepal).

El Salvador – October 2012. FAO contributed to the capacity strengthening on the right to food of Parliamentarians in several countries. In that context, the team of the project Right to Food at Country Level, managed by the Right to Food Team of FAO, organized a mission to El Salvador in October 2012, in light of the strong will from various actors in the country as well as the support of the FAO Representation in El Salvador.

22 October 2012, Rome – A joint Committee on World Food Security (CFS) side event by the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, OHCHR and FAO took place on 19 October 2012 at FAO Headquarters. Under the headline “The transformational power of the right to food: Countries pioneering right to food strategies”, the event focused on national-level experiences of setting up legal and institutional frameworks for the realization of the right to adequate food.

In 2009, the CFS pledged to “strive for a world free from hunger where countries implement the voluntary guidelines for the progressive realization of the right to adequate food.” The side event looked at concrete steps to strengthen national laws, policies and strategies to realize the right to food and lessons learned from national experiences.

July 2012, Rome (Italy) – A milestone of institutional strengthening was reached on 21 March 2012, when the the Comissão Interministerial da Função Pública approved SETSAN’s Organic Statute which has been made official through the Decree No. 7/2012. The new Statute gives SETSAN juridical status, higher administrative independence - including in the management of human and financial resources, and enjoys an official mandate which protects its coordination role, also in a decentralized structure.

Rio+20 is the short name for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development and will take place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 20 to 22 of June 2012. It is a historic opportunity to define pathways to a sustainable future for mankind. For FAO, “The Future We Want” will not materialize as long as hunger and malnutrition persist, and it will not materialize without sustainable management of agriculture and food systems.