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	A food crisis that never went away by Right to Food and Nutrition Watch 2017   The 2007/2008 crisis that pushed the number of people living in hunger to one billion and compromised the human rights of many more, never really went away, the 2017 Right to Food and Nutrition Watch warns.   Launched at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (UN FAO), the Right to Food and Nutrition Watch marks its tenth anniversary by taking stock of the last decade, when the world food crisis brought the number of hungry to a peak. Today, despite some progress, many of the problems that led to the crisis in the first place persist and continue to affect millions.   This is confirmed by this year’s report ‘The State of Food Security and Nutrition’ (SOFI) announcing that, after steadily declining for over a decade, global hunger is on the rise again, affecting 815 million people in 2016 – 11% of the global population.   Although these figures do not represent the full picture of food insecurity, they give a hint of the path the world is heading towards. The proliferation of violent conflicts, like in Yemen, and climate-related shocks, which can be best exemplified by recent catastrophes in the Caribbean and Americas, are partly behind such trends. But underlining all this is the dominant economic system.   Entitled “World Food Crisis: The Way Out”, this issue of the Watch illustrates the ongoing multifold crisis that the world is still trapped in with ten articles and ten key images. From climate change to unfair global trade rules through the agribusiness megamergers, the role of women in transforming food systems and the right to food in emergency situations, the Watch sheds light on the intricacies behind the crisis.   The Watch echoes that the crisis, which was rather multifaceted and multidimensional, “had profound effects on people''s lives and livelihoods, on their relationships to food, as well as on public health and on the social fabric of communities – effects that are still being felt to this day”.   The crisis was indeed the result of a convergence of complex long- and short-term factors, as the authors explore. But for many, especially in the food sovereignty movement, itcame as no surprise, as it was the inevitable outcome of dominant economic and political systems that prioritize profit over the maintenance of our environment and our human rights.   The Watch highlights that there is a homogenizing and hegemonic global food system, which is driven by increasingly concentrated transnational corporations and reduces food to a tradable commodity. The rural space is the primary area where this conflict materializes, often violently, while in urban contexts the alarming incidence and prevalence of diet-related non-communicable diseases is on the rise worldwide.   “This unsustainability had been evident in the systematic exploitation of farm labor, the persistent pollution of natural resources, the concentration of economic power and wealth that left food producers chronically indebted, and the rising levels of inequality in access to both food and productive resources”, it reads.   In its recommendations to overcome crisis, the publication points to the need for systemic transformations, for a transition to sustainable production, distribution and consumption models, based on solidarity, social, environmental and gender justice, and the guarantee of all human rights.   “To have the wherewithal to feed humanity into the future, we urgently need to build up resilient local and regional food systems and address the extreme concentrations of power in national and international markets,” it concludes.   Commenting on the publication, Soledad García Muñoz, first Special Rapporteur on Economic, Social, Cultural, and Environmental Rights of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), states: “To understand the crisis, it is necessary to carry an honest and introspective analysis of the dominant food system, as well as the socio-political apparatus that sustains it. To overcome it, we need to achieve a better distribution of power and wealth, and believe that change itself is possible.   This needs to come along with the reinforcement of human rights and all the mechanisms that promote them in good faith. After all, as the Watch points out, these are the result of our struggles for social justice and will be the cornerstone for the future generations.” Visit the related web page
	World’s poor ‘paying the price’ for global trends, says UN development expert by Saad Alfarargi UN Special Rapporteur on the right to development   14 September 2017   People living in poverty around the world are facing increasing multiple threats including climate change and the global economic crisis, but the political will to tackle the issues is lacking, a United Nations human rights expert has warned in his maiden report to the Human Rights Council.   The first UN Special Rapporteur on the right to development, Saad Alfarargi, issued a rallying cry for the international community and agencies to wake up to the scale of the problem and step up their responses.   “More than 30 years after the right to development was established in a UN declaration, millions of people around the world are living with the consequences of the failure to deliver it,” he said.   “Negative global trends have their harshest impacts on the poorest sections of society. People are feeling the impact of the global financial and economic crisis, the energy and climate crisis, and an increasing number of natural disasters.   “Add to that the new global pandemics, corruption, the privatization of public services, austerity, and the ageing of the global population, including in developing countries, and the effect is a harsh and worsening impact on the poor.   “We are witnessing some of the greatest challenges the world has ever seen, without the global commitment to deliver change. People in developing countries are paying a heavy price for global actions beyond their control.”   People in Africa, in the world’s least developed countries, and in developing countries that were either landlocked or small islands were losing out the most, he added.   The Special Rapporteur said the international community could not even agree on exactly what the right to development meant, or how to measure progress, and the issue had become increasingly politicized.   “This political divide has resulted in a low level of engagement of United Nations agencies and civil society in promoting, protecting and fulfilling the right to development,” Mr. Alfarargi noted.   “Too many people are unaware that the right to development even exists. We need to raise this low level of awareness, from grassroots organizations to governments, and make sure they are all fully engaged in implementing it.   “The right to development is far from being universally recognized and even further from full implementation,” the Special Rapporteur stressed.   Mr. Alfarargi said many of the building blocks for change were available. “Global agreements are in place to deliver global solutions,” he said, highlighting the Sustainable Development Goals - which aim to deliver radical change by 2030 - and the Paris agreement on climate change. He highlighted the progress on financing development, set out in the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, and on ways to build safer cities in Sendai Framework for disaster risk reduction.   “All UN agencies, development agencies, financial and trade institutions – in short any group working for development – should put the right to development at the centre of their work. There is an urgent need to make the right to development a reality for everyone,” said Mr. Alfarargi Visit the related web page
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