French version

Is your right to food realized?

As human rights continue to regress, it is time to raise our voice and hold our governments accountable.

In 2014, CSOs and social movements issued a report to take stock of national implementation of the right to food and to call for renewed commitment by governments, UN agencies, civil society and other stakeholders, for the full realization of the right to adequate food and nutrition.

However, rather than renewed commitments, since 2014 we have witnessed regression in human rights commitments across international, regional and national levels, and a failure of governments to fully address issues of accountability. The right to food is the right of people to feed themselves, their families and their communities in dignity, today and in the future. The right to food requires laws and policies that support this and improve peoples’ ability to meet their food needs, to grow food and to make a living sustainably.

Holding governments accountable to their legal human rights obligations, as well as ensuring that the commitments made and negotiated in international policy fora are implemented, has been a consistent challenge for CSOs. However, we have a new opportunity to raise our voices about right to food realization and to hold our governments accountable.

With the development of the CFS monitoring mechanism, major policy instruments will be reviewed at the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) on a biennial basis. In 2016 the Tenure Guidelines were reviewed, and CSOs provided an independent CSO report to contribute to the process. After some difficult negotiations, it has been agreed that the Right to Food Guidelines will be monitored, with results presented during the 45th session of the CFS in October 2018.

As part of this process, the Civil Society Mechanism (CSM) for the CFS will coordinate its own independent process and report. The objectives of this exercise include:

  • Document progress on implementation of the right to food, looking beyond the existence of laws and policy frameworks;
  • Make visible the policies and practices of governments, third parties and international organizations which give rise to violations, or prevent the realization of the right to food;
  • Create an updated normative framework of the right to food, which has developed from and since the Right to Food Guidelines.

In order to reflect the current realities and improve existing mechanisms, we need you to share your experience with the right to food!

Click here to contribute to change!