Deputy High Commissioner: how to tackle food insecurity

Excellencies,

Dear colleagues,

There is more than enough food produced in the world to feed everyone on the planet. Yet, 735 million people suffer from hunger and malnutrition.

153 million children face food insecurity.^[1] Women and girls are often those that eat last and least: they constitute 60% of the world’s food insecure.^[2]

Hunger is endemic both in conflict and in many of the world’s forgotten crises. Around us, ongoing conflicts demonstrate the devastating implications of food deficits. In these crises, children are at the forefront, suffering from stunting and malnutrition.

In Gaza, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification system has recorded the highest number of people facing catastrophic hunger - 96% of the population – 2.15 million people – due to ongoing restrictions on humanitarian aid, displacement, and widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure.

In Sudan, the conflict has exacerbated the economic crisis, resulting in skyrocketing prices. Coupled with dwindling livelihood opportunities, this is severely affecting the right to food. More than one third of the 50 million Sudanese face acute food insecurity, with almost 5 million on the brink of famine.^[3] The projections are bleak: 2.5 million, 5% of the entire population, may die of hunger by September,^[4].

Starvation must never be used as a weapon of war.

Many other contexts provide ample example of often preventable large-scale food insecurity.

In Myanmar, 13.3 million people – almost a quarter of the population – remains food insecure. In Cox’s Bazar, Rohingya refugees are suffering from widespread malnutrition.

In the DPRK, the increasing centralization of food production and distribution is undermining access to food: almost half of the population have been food insecure in recent years.

In the face of such catastrophes, it is imperative that we, the international community, unite in our pursuit of a human rights-based approach to respond to these challenges.

We must shift our focus from simply producing more food to building global and national food systems that prioritize accessibility, adequacy, and sustainability in line with international human rights standards.

We are at a critical juncture where the impact of conflicts, economic crises, and climate change on the right to food cannot be overstated. It is our collective responsibility to promote and protect the right to food, including in conflict zones.

Dear colleagues,

Our Office is working jointly with the FAO to mainstream the right to food in the work of the UN and engagement with Member States - including to implement the right to food at the national level.

The UN Committee on World Food Security Voluntary Guidelines for the Progressive Realization of the Right to Adequate Food in the Context of National Food Security – which this year celebrates their 20^th anniversary – have played a key role in guiding policies to implement a human rights-based approach to food security and nutrition. Not all have adopted these important guidelines.

Along with the legal guidance issued by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights – including its General Comment on the Right to Adequate Food – the Guidelines can be used to support States to uphold the right to food.

By strengthening the interlinkages between the work of the Human Rights Council and the Committee on World Food Security, we can initiate the required change, supporting duty bearers in their efforts to respect their legal obligations to realize the right to food for everyone, everywhere, including by:

1. Reinforcing the complementarity between the technical expertise in the Rome-based agencies and the normative framework of the human rights system in Geneva.
2. Using the recommendations from the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, and other relevant human rights mechanisms to identify root causes and propose solutions to address violations of and obstacles to the realization of the right to food. 
    

As we commemorated the 75^th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights last year, we recalled and recommitted to the understanding that human rights are interdependent, indivisible, and universal.

The right to food is not optional. It is not a luxury or a function of charity, it is the right of everyone, everywhere, at all times.

Thank you.

[1] https://www.savethechildren.org/us/what-we-do/emergency-response/hunger-and-famine-crisis

[2] https://www.wfpusa.org/women-are-hungrier-infographic/

[3] https://www.ipcinfo.org/ipc-country-analysis/details-map/en/c/1156903/?iso3=SDN

[4] CA_From_hunger_to_death__0.pdf (clingendael.org)