A woman serving food to people living in a village in Tanzania in the context of a health and food programme.
Photo: © Shutterstock/Ericky Boniphace

The Human Right to Food – an important tool for a world without hunger

To mark World Food Day on the 16th October and this year’s 20th anniversary of the UN Guidelines on the Right to Adequate Food, the AG Landwirtschaft und Ernährung (AG L&E) of the “Forum Umwelt und Entwicklung” (FU&E) has addressed a policy paper to the German Federal Government.

The 16th October is World Food Day and coincides this year with the 20th anniversary of the UN guidelines on the Right to Food. Although these guidelines for governments to implement the Human Right to Adequate Food were introduced what is now two decades ago, the number of those who are denied this right is increasing. Given such a disastrous trend, the Agriculture and Food Task Force (AG L&E) of the German NGO Forum on Environment and Development (FU&E) expects the German Federal Government to campaign more rigorously for the world-wide elimination of hunger.

FAO says 733 million people are suffering chronic hunger
 

According to the World Food Organization (FAO), world-wide, around 733 million people, i.e. every eleventh individual on Earth, are suffering chronic hunger. More than two billion people are facing medium to severe food insecurity – which means that these people are without regular access to sufficient food or sometimes have to make do without food for one day or even longer. This affects almost 30 per cent of the global population, and 776 million people more than it did just ten years ago!

In a press release of the 15th October, Jan Dreier of FIAN Deutschland points out that the problem of hunger cannot be tackled merely with declarations of intent. “Governments and agroindustry businesses have to assume responsibility and be held responsible. The Right to Food must really be applied in national and international food policies. Here, Germany has a lot to catch up with, too, remarks Dreier, adding that the country’s Federal Government ought to have its departments, above all the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL), cooperate more strongly and make its food policy coherent with the recommendations of the UN World Food Commission on the Right to Food.

Josephine Koch of Forum Umwelt und Entwicklung adds that it is essential in this context to have the voice of the people most hard hit by hunger, such as smallholders, fishers and Indigenous Peoples, at the centre of all solutions and to ensure that they can address their concerns directly to the political decision-makers.

The AG L&E members have drawn up a policy paper with concrete proposals on improving German policies addressing the Right to Food which was published at www.forumue.de .

(FU&E/wi)

More information at: www.forumue.de

Link to policy paper

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