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	20 years of UN Right to Food Guidelines - Time for full implementation by Bread for the World, FIAN International, agencies   On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the UN’s Right to Food Guidelines, the Global Network for the Right to Food and Nutrition (GNRTFN) calls for their immediate and comprehensive implementation, with due consideration and application of advances of the normative and legal framework on the human right to adequate food and nutrition made since their adoption in 2004.   Millions of people are suffering from hunger and malnutrition due to structural inequalities, violence in societies and food systems, and rampant grabbing of territories, characterized by the unjust and unsustainable acquisition of land, water, seeds, and other natural resources as well as unfair and unjust trade regimes.   Due to gender-based violence and intersecting forms of discrimination women, girls and diversities have been disproportionately affected by such dispossession and mounting inequalities.   At the same time, extractivism, commodification and financialization, including in the context of industrial agriculture and aquaculture, have triggered the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution with devastating impacts on the realization of the right to food and nutrition both for present as well as for future generations.   The Right to Food Guidelines were adopted by the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS) and the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) in 2004. They have provided a solid ground for the elaboration and development of a full body of human rights norms and policies subsequently adopted by the UN, such as the CEDAW General Recommendation 34, FAO Tenure Guidelines, Small-Scale Fisheries Guidelines, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.   They have contributed to the advanced human rights narrative and enriched normative legal framework of the right to food and nutrition, providing a guidance towards human rights-based transformation of food systems.   Today, 29 countries explicitly recognize the right to adequate food in their constitutions, while more than 100 countries acknowledge it implicitly or through directives, principles or other pertinent provisions. In this context, we would like to highlight Nepal’s role as a pioneer: the country’s constitution guarantees the right to food and food sovereignty, and a law to this effect was passed in 2018. The law provides for institutional mechanisms at the national, provincial and local levels, as well as the coordinated development of a national nutrition plan.   An ordinance to implement the law was passed by the Government of Nepal in March this year. With this legal recognition, Nepal has focused its efforts on reducing the proportion of undernourished population by half since 2018, and currently ranks 69th out of 125 countries in the Global Hunger Index.   This is in sharp contrast to other South Asian countries. In Bangladesh, for example, a right to food law was drafted by the Law Commission as early as 2016, but its passage is still pending. In India, despite a number of positive developments, such as the Supreme Court’s recognition of the right to food as a fundamental right in 2001 and the enactment of landmark legislation such as the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act of 2005 and the National Food Security Act of 2013, the hunger situation is serious and the country ranks 111th in the Global Hunger Index.   We call on governments to strengthen their commitments towards the realization of the right to food and nutrition and to end hunger and malnutrition, by incorporating international human rights provisions into national legislation, regulations, policies and programs.   This entails creating mechanisms for accountability, ensuring meaningful participation of affected communities in decision-making processes, and establishing transparent systems to monitor and redress instances of violations of the right to food.   We urge governments worldwide to uphold their obligations regarding the realization of the human right to food and nutrition by implementing the guidelines and taking decisive actions to end hunger and malnutrition. By doing so, we can collectively build a future where the enjoyment of the right to food and nutrition is a reality for all, where the rights of individuals and communities are respected, protected and fulfilled, and where the global community stands united against the forces that perpetuate hunger and discrimination.   International cooperation among states for the realization of economic, social, and cultural rights is an obligation of all states. Every state has a responsibility to actively contribute to maintaining enduring peace and justice – particularly in conflict-affected nations – and toward ending poverty and hunger. By addressing the root causes, holding responsible actors accountable, and fostering collaboration at local, national, and international levels, we can collectively strive towards a world where the right to food and nutrition is realized for all.   In particular, we, the undersigned organizations, recommend the following to all states for the implementation of the Right to Food Guidelines:   Strategic collaborations: Strengthen convergences and joint strategies with civil society in its diversity by prioritizing rights holders such as social movements, Indigenous Peoples, feminist movements, small-scale food producers and others.   Strengthening governance with social participation at all levels: Create and implement food governance systems with strong social participation mechanisms and with a solid legal and institutional framework and guaranteed conditions of operation.   Defending the public interest from corporate influence in food systems: Develop comprehensive legal frameworks of responsibility, regulation and accountability for corporations, from production to consumption, as well as norms that protect governance spaces from corporate influence and conflict of interest.   Engagement in processes and policies to transform food systems and strengthen land tenure: Promote and actively engage in the transformation of food systems respecting local food cultures, valuing agro-socio-biodiversity and the principles of agroecology, and prioritizing local and territorial systems, particularly the importance of land tenure security.   http://www.righttofoodandnutrition.org/20-years-un-right-food-guidelines http://www.righttofoodandnutrition.org/peoples-ecological-alternatives-corporate-greenwashing http://www.ipsnews.net/2024/12/fao-renews-commitment-right-food-guidelines/ http://www.fao.org/webcast/home/en/item/6935/icode http://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k1u/k1uqiyuei5 http://www.fao.org/right-to-food/en http://ipes-food.org/ Visit the related web page
	Want to end poverty? Then reduce inequality by Max Lawson Head of Inequality Policy at Oxfam International   June 2025   World Bank: 838 million people live in extreme poverty   The World Bank have published revised poverty numbers, and the findings are pretty dramatic. They now think that there are 125 million more people living in extreme poverty in 2022 than they did previously- that extreme poverty is 10.5% of the world’s population, as opposed to their previous estimate of 9%. That is the equivalent to the entire population of Japan.   To quote their blog: ‘The update includes three main changes to the PIP data: First, the update brings new survey data for several country-years, including important updates to data from India; second, it includes the adoption of the 2021 Purchasing Power Parities (PPPs); and third, based on the new PPPs and new survey data, including new national poverty lines, the update revises the global poverty lines.’   We already knew that poverty had shot up during Covid-19, and then begun to come down again, but very slowly. These new estimates show that the decline is even slower than originally projected, with extreme poverty in 2022 basically at the same level as it was in 2019.   This then impacts on the World Bank forecasts for where poverty levels are in 2025- revised upwards from 8.5% of humanity to 9.9% of humanity- or one in ten people.   These are of course figures for extreme poverty. Oxfam along with many others have been very critical that this threshold that is too low. We pointed to the fact that the UN estimates that more people are living in hunger than the World Bank estimates are in extreme poverty. Now at least with these revised estimates this is no longer the case, with over 750 million living in hunger and 838 million in extreme poverty.   Nevertheless, the extreme poverty line remains far too low, and not a realistic assessment of what it is to be poor.   In response to these criticisms the World Bank introduced and started using higher poverty lines, with the highest being $6.85 (now revised to $8.30) a day; at this rate the percentage of humanity living in poverty in 2022 given these revised estimates is now 48% and in 2025 projected to be 45.5%.   This move by the World Bank was very welcome and gives a more realistic picture of poverty, both in overall numbers and in where it is located. With extreme poverty, the story was becoming more and more only about Africa, and this meant the global discussion of poverty and its impacts had begun to disappear from the rest of the world, which was not helpful. With this higher rate, the discussion is not just more realistic in terms of what it means to be poor, but also more realistic in showing that there continue to be large numbers of people living in poverty all over the world.   (As part of this revision the World Bank have also carried out one of their periodic revisions of the dollar equivalence for specific poverty lines in response to revisions in estimates of Purchasing Power Parity- what you are able to buy in your country for a set amount of dollars- so extreme poverty has gone from being $2.15 a day to $3 a day, and the higher poverty line from $6.85 to $8.30)   Prospects for further reductions in poverty very bleak indeed   What will happen over the next few years to poverty levels? This depends basically on two variables, economic growth and the level of inequality. Basically, if you grow your national economic pie, even if you do nothing to reduce inequality, poverty will still reduce; this is the classic trickle-down approach. Equally if you redistribute some of the economic pie and make your country more equal, then you will have a greater reduction in poverty.   The outlook for economic growth in the coming years is not rosy. Trade wars, actual wars, climate breakdown; all of these, even for the most upbeat forecaster, would suggest that banking on trickle down to end poverty is not a wise strategy. Add to this the total collapse in aid levels from the Global North to the Global South- with new numbers released by Oxfam this week as the G7 meeting Canada showing the biggest cut to G7 aid in the history of the G7, and the outlook is grim to say the least.   In their Poverty, Prosperity and Planet report, published before the swinging cuts to aid, The World Bank were already very pessimistic, and they are usually relentlessly upbeat. They estimated that with 2% growth shared equally within each country, it would take 60 years to bring extreme poverty down to the Sustainable Development Goal target of 3% globally, and that at the higher poverty rate of $8.30, it would take well over a century before poverty is eliminated.   Reducing inequality would triple the speed of poverty reduction   In the same report they also modelled what the impact would be if countries also managed to reduce inequality; in their model they look at a 2% reduction in inequality every year in addition to 2% growth.   In this scenario, extreme poverty could be brought down close to the target in 20 years and not 60, or almost three times faster. At the higher poverty line, a reduction in inequality of 2% annually combined with 2% growth means there would be 646 million less people living in poverty in 2050 than if inequality remains unchanged- similar to the entire population of Latin America and Caribbean (658 million).   This also has the added and important benefit of being able to reduce poverty dramatically at much lower rates of growth than would otherwise be needed, which is good for the planet as more growth means more carbon.   A new Global Alliance Against Inequality is formed   It is hard to think of a better argument for nations focusing more on reducing inequality. Given this, it was positive last week to see the launch by the German and Sierra Leonean governments of the new ‘Global Alliance against Inequality’ at the Hamburg Sustainability Conference. The joint statement, also signed by Norway and the Czechia, is direct:   ‘Extreme inequalities and power imbalances with a concentration of wealth and influence in the hands of a few at the expense of the majority hinder essential policy reforms. We will collectively seek to ensure that the reduction of inequality is strengthened as a global priority on the international agenda and that an overarching framework for action requiring sustained political will is further developed.’   We really hope this Alliance grows rapidly over the coming months, to pull together a strong group of countries from north and south that are serious about reducing inequality, with all its manifold benefits for both people and the planet.   http://www.equals.ink/p/want-to-end-poverty-then-reduce-inequality http://www.equals.ink/p/from-competition-to-concentration Visit the related web page
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