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Safeguarding people’s right to food in times of crisis
The primary responsibility of states is to promote and protect the right to food, and the international community should help provide for this.
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Families receive flour rations and other basic food supplies from charities in the province of Lahj, Yemen, on March 29. (AFP/Saleh Al-Obeidi)
The Group of 20 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, which ended on Friday, and the upcoming G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governor Meeting, which begins this Friday, are giving the global community a glimmer of hope for the world’s food security and recovery.
Indonesia’s G20 presidency, with the theme “Recover Together. Recover Stronger”, comes amid multiple and intersecting shocks fueled by the issues of climate, COVID-19 and crises (3Cs). Unfortunately, the multilateral system today is under pressure like never before. We often see distrust, rather than the ability to find solutions, at multilateral forums.
These new realities will have major consequences. The multiple shocks will jeopardize efforts to fulfill the right to food for all and reverse hard-won gain toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially goal two, which aims to end hunger.
The right to food contends that hunger constitutes an outrage and violation of human dignity, requiring the adoption of urgent measures at the national, regional and international levels for its elimination. It highlights the true concern over the effects of the world food crisis, which continue to have serious consequences for the poorest and most vulnerable people, particularly in many net food-importing countries.
It is alarming that in 2020, the number of people lacking access to adequate food rose by 320 million – to 2.4 billion – amounting to nearly a third of the world’s population, as estimated by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Between 720 million and 811 million people are facing hunger.
Multiple global shocks require all global stakeholders to respond in concert based on unity, solidarity and strengthened multilateral cooperation. There are three sources of leverage that we can use to safeguard the right to food in times of crisis.
The first is inviting all relevant international organizations, such as the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Fund of Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Food Program (WFP) to scale up policies and projects that have positive impacts on the right to food and to support country-level strategies aimed at the fulfillment of the right to food.
