WUNRN
It is very significant to those
working on issues related to WOMEN & GIRLS & THE RIGHT TO FOOD, to have
the Voluntary Food Guidelines as a reference. Now, the Right-To Food Ten-Year
Perspective Statement that includes:
6) Urges all CFS – Committee on World Food Security stakeholders
to integrate gender equality and women’s empowerment in the design and
implementation of food security and nutrition policies and programs;
We know how challenging it can be to get “gender specific wordage”
in High Level documents, but having it as above, can be a catalyst to our
advocacy on women and the right to food. As the Committee on World Food
Security is government-based at FAO, though NGO’s can provide input, the text
of both the Voluntary Guidelines and now this Statement from CSF, can be
leverage, tools, in analysis, defense of gender rights, and programming on the
multiple dimensions of the Right to Food for women and children. WUNRN will
next post the multiple intersectionalities of Women & The Right to Food.
FAO Committee on World Food Security Website: http://www.fao.org/cfs/cfs-home/en/
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http://www.fao.org/3/a-ml774e.pdf
FAO COMMITTEE ON WORLD FOOD
SECURITY - CFS
Forty-first
Session "Making a Difference in Food Security and Nutrition"
Rome, Italy,
13-18 October 2014
RIGHT-TO-FOOD TEN-YEAR PERSPECTIVE The Committee: 1) Welcomes the significant contribution of the Voluntary
Guidelines for the Progressive Realization of the Right to Adequate Food in
the Context of National Food Security in guiding national governments in the
design and implementation of food security and nutrition policies, programs
and legal frameworks in the last ten years, and reaffirms its commitment
towards achieving the progressive realization of the Right to Food in the
years to come; 2) Encourages all CFS stakeholders to promote policy
coherence in line with the Voluntary Guidelines for the Progressive
Realization of the Right to Adequate Food in the Context of National Food
Security, and in that context, reaffirms the importance of nutrition as an
essential element of food security; 3) Reaffirms the importance of respecting, protecting,
promoting and facilitating human rights when developing and implementing
policies and programs related to food security and nutrition. 4) Invites to consider a human rights based approach to
food security and nutrition and encourages to strengthen mechanisms that
facilitate informed, participatory and transparent decision making in food
security and nutrition policy processes, including effective monitoring and
accountability; 5) Urges all CFS stakeholders to afford the highest
priority to the most vulnerable, food insecure and malnourished people and
groups when designing and implementing food security and nutrition policies
and programs;
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FAO
VOLUNTARY GUIDELINES ON THE RIGHT TO FOOD
In 1996, the World Food Summit convened in Rome. It requested that the right to food be given a more concrete and operational content. A number of initiatives were taken as a result. In 1999, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the body of independent experts monitoring States’ compliance with the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, adopted General Comment No. 12 on the right to food. The mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the right to food was established by the Commission on Human Rights by resolution 2000/10 of 17 April 2000. Following the request of the 2002 World Food Summit – five years later, an Intergovernmental Working Group was established under the auspices of the United Nations Organization for Food and Agriculture (FAO) in order to prepare a set of guidelines on the implementation of the right to food.
This process led to the adoption on 23 November 2004, by the 187 Member States of the General Council of the FAO, of the Voluntary Guidelines to Support the Progressive Realization of the Right to Adequate Food in the Context of National Food Security. The Guidelines are a set of recommendations States have chosen to adopt to assist in the implementation of the human right to adequate food. They offer practical guidance to States about how best to implement their obligation, under international law, to respect the right to adequate food and to ensure freedom from hunger.
Direct
Link to the 43-Page FAO Voluntary Guildelines on The Right to Adequate Food
http://www.fao.org/3/a-y7937e.pdf
More
Resources on the Right to Food Guidelines + Links to the Voluntary Guidelines
on the Right to Food in more UN official translations - http://www.fao.org/righttofood/en/
The right to adequate food is realized ‘when every man, woman and child, alone or in community with others, has physical and economic access at all times to adequate food or means for its procurement. The right to adequate food shall therefore not be interpreted in a narrow or restrictive sense which equates it with a minimum package of calories, proteins and other specific nutrients. The right to adequate food will have to be realized progressively. However, States have a core obligation to take the necessary action to mitigate and alleviate hunger even in times of natural or other disasters’ (General Comment No. 12, at para. 6). For the Special Rapporteur, the right to food is the right to have regular, permanent and unrestricted access, either directly or by means of financial purchases, to quantitatively and qualitatively adequate and sufficient food corresponding to the cultural traditions of the people to which the consumer belongs, and which ensure a physical and mental, individual and collective, fulfilling and dignified life free of fear.