The General Assembly,
Reaffirming the Charter of the United Nations and its importance for the
promotion and protection of all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all,
Reaffirming also all previous resolutions and decisions on the right to food
adopted within the framework of the United Nations,
Recalling the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which provides that
everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for her or his health and
well-being, including food, the Universal Declaration on the Eradication of Hunger
and Malnutrition and the United Nations Millennium Declaration,
in particular Millennium Development Goal 1 on eradicating extreme poverty and hunger by
2015,
Recalling also the provisions of the International Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights, in which the fundamental right of every person to be
free from hunger is recognized,
Bearing in mind the Rome Declaration on World Food Security and the World
Food Summit Plan of Action and the Declaration of the World Food Summit: five
years later, adopted in Rome on 13 June 2002,
Reaffirming the concrete recommendations contained in the Voluntary
Guidelines to Support the Progressive Realization of the Right to Adequate Food in
the Context of National Food Security, adopted by the Council of the Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in November 2004,
Reaffirming also the Five Rome Principles for Sustainable Global Food
Security contained in the Declaration of the World Summit on Food Security,
adopted in Rome on 16 November 2009,
Reaffirming further that all human rights are universal, indivisible,
interdependent and interrelated, and that they must be treated globally, in a fair and
equal manner, on the same footing and with the same emphasis,
Reaffirming that a peaceful, stable and enabling political, social and economic
environment, at both the national and the international levels, is the essential
foundation that will enable States to give adequate priority to food security and
poverty eradication,
Reiterating, as in the Rome Declaration on World Food Security and the
Declaration of the World Food Summit: five years later, that food should not be
used as an instrument of political or economic pressure, and reaffirming in this
regard the importance of international cooperation and solidarity, as well as the
necessity of refraining from unilateral measures that are not in accordance with
international law and the Charter of the United Nations and that endanger food
security,
Convinced that each State must adopt a strategy consistent with its resources
and capacities to achieve its individual goals in implementing the recommendations
contained in the Rome Declaration on World Food Security and the World Food
Summit Plan of Action and, at the same time, cooperate regionally and
internationally in order to organize collective solutions to global issues of food
security in a world of increasingly interlinked institutions, societies and economies
where coordinated efforts and shared responsibilities are essential,
Recognizing that the complex character of the global food crisis, in which the
right to adequate food is threatened to be violated on a massive scale, is a
combination of several major factors, such as the global financial and economic
crisis, environmental degradation, desertification and the impacts of global climate
change, as well as natural disasters and the lack in many countries of the appropriate
technology, investment and capacity-building necessary to confront its impact,
particularly in developing countries, least developed countries and small island
developing States,
Resolved to act to ensure that the human rights perspective is taken into
account at the national, regional and international levels in measures to address the
global food crisis,
Expressing its deep concern at the number and scale of natural disasters,
diseases and pests, as well as the negative impact of climate change, and their
increasing impact in recent years, which have resulted in substantial loss of life and
livelihood and threatened agricultural production and food security, in particular in
developing countries,
Stressing the importance of reversing the continuing decline of official
development assistance devoted to agriculture, both in real terms and as a share of
total official development assistance,
Recognizing the importance of the protection and preservation of
agrobiodiversity in guaranteeing food security and the right to food for all,
Recognizing also the role of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the
United Nations as the key United Nations agency for rural and agricultural
development and its work in supporting the efforts of Member States to achieve the
full realization of the right to food, including through its provision of technical
assistance to developing countries in support of the implementation of national
priority frameworks,
Taking note of the final Declaration adopted at the International Conference on
Agrarian Reform and Rural Development of the Food and Agriculture Organization
of the United Nations in Porto Alegre, Brazil, on 10 March 2006,
Acknowledging the High-level Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis
established by the Secretary-General, and supporting the Secretary-General in his
continuing efforts in this regard, including continued engagement with Member
States and the Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights Council on the right to food,
1. Reaffirms that hunger constitutes an outrage and a violation of human
dignity and therefore requires the adoption of urgent measures at the national,
regional and international levels for its elimination;
2. Also reaffirms the right of everyone to have access to safe, sufficient and
nutritious food, consistent with the right to adequate food and the fundamental right
of everyone to be free from hunger, so as to be able to fully develop and maintain
his or her physical and mental capacities;
3. Considers it intolerable that, as estimated by the United Nations
Children’s Fund, more than one third of the children who die every year before the
age of 5 do so from hunger-related illness, that, as estimated by the Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the number of people who are
undernourished is about 925 million worldwide, and that an additional 1 billion
people are suffering from serious malnutrition, including as a result of the global
food crisis, while, according to the latter organization, the planet could produce
enough food to feed everyone around the world;
4. Expresses its concern at the fact that the effects of the world food crisis
continue to have serious consequences for the poorest and most vulnerable people,
particularly in developing countries, which have been further aggravated by the
world financial and economic crisis, and at the particular effects of this crisis on
many net food-importing countries, especially on least developed countries;
5. Also expresses its concern that women and girls are disproportionately
affected by hunger, food insecurity and poverty, in part as a result of gender
inequality and discrimination, that in many countries, girls are twice as likely as
boys to die from malnutrition and preventable childhood diseases and that it is
estimated that almost twice as many women as men suffer from malnutrition;
6. Encourages all States to take action to address gender inequality and
discrimination against women, in particular where it contributes to the malnutrition
of women and girls, including measures to ensure the full and equal realization of
the right to food and ensuring that women have equal access to resources, including
income, land and water and their ownership, as well as full and equal access to
education, science and technology, to enable them to feed themselves and their
families;
7. Encourages the Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights Council on the
right to food to continue mainstreaming a gender perspective in the fulfilment of his
mandate, and encourages the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations and all other United Nations bodies and mechanisms addressing the right to
food and food insecurity to integrate a gender perspective into their relevant
policies, programmes and activities;
8. Reaffirms the need to ensure that programmes delivering safe and
nutritious food are inclusive of and accessible to persons with disabilities;
9. Encourages all States to take steps with a view to achieving
progressively the full realization of the right to food, including steps to promote the
conditions for everyone to be free from hunger and, as soon as possible, to enjoy
fully the right to food, and to create and adopt national plans to combat hunger;
10. Recognizes the advances reached through South-South cooperation in
developing countries and regions in connection with food security and the
development of agricultural production for the full realization of the right to food;
11. Stresses that improving access to productive resources and public
investment in rural development are essential for eradicating hunger and poverty, in
particular in developing countries, including through the promotion of investments
in appropriate small-scale irrigation and water management technologies in order to
reduce vulnerability to droughts;
12. Recognizes that 80 per cent of hungry people live in rural areas and
50 per cent are small-scale farm-holders, and that these people are especially
vulnerable to food insecurity, given the increasing cost of inputs and the fall in farm
incomes; that access to land, water, seeds and other natural resources is an
increasing challenge for poor producers; that sustainable and gender-sensitive
agricultural policies are important tools for promoting land and agrarian reform,
rural credit and insurance, technical assistance and other associated measures to
achieve food security and rural development; and that support by States for small
farmers, fishing communities and local enterprises, including through the
facilitation of access of their products to national and international markets and
empowerment of small producers, particularly women, in value chains, is a key
element for food security and the provision of the right to food;
13. Stresses the importance of fighting hunger in rural areas, including
through national efforts supported by international partnerships to stop
desertification and land degradation and through investments and public policies
that are specifically appropriate to the risk of drylands, and in this regard calls for
the full implementation of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification
in Those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification,
Particularly in Africa;