Agriculture Development and Food Security

A/RES/66/220No PDF available

Who created this mandate?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 25Agriculture development and food security, published in 2012.

What other versions does this mandate have?

5 versions · 2009–2013

This is an older version — the most recent is A/RES/67/228

2013A/RES/67/228Agriculture development and food securityLatestCompare with previous version
2012A/RES/66/220Agriculture development and food securityCompare with previous version
2011A/RES/65/178Agriculture development and food securityCompare with previous version
2010A/RES/64/224Agriculture development and food securityCompare with previous version
2009A/RES/63/235Agriculture development and food security

Versions are identified automatically by matching titles within the same organ (~97% accuracy on a manual audit).

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

1 report of the Secretary-General submitted under this mandate, 2013.

2013A/68/217Technology bank and science, technology and innovation supporting mechanism dedicated to the least developed countries report of the Secretary-General

Identified automatically from the metadata in each report’s UN Digital Library catalogue record.

What does this mandate say?

38 operative paragraphs

Takes note of the report of the Secretary-General;

Welcomes the note by the Chair of the Committee on World Food Security on the progress made in implementing the reform of the Committee, and urges Member States and encourages civil society and the private sector to strongly support such reform and the aims and endeavours of the Committee;

Reiterates the need to adequately and urgently address agriculture development and food security in the context of national, regional and international development policies, taking into account the importance of enhancing synergies between sustainable agriculture, biodiversity, food security, nutrition and development policies;

Also reiterates the importance of developing countries determining their own food security strategies, that food security is a national policy responsibility and that any plans for addressing food security challenges and the eradication of poverty in relation to food security must be nationally articulated, designed, owned and led and built in consultation with all key stakeholders at the national level, and urges Member States, especially those that suffer from food insecurity, to make food security a high priority and to reflect this in their national programmes and budgets;

Acknowledges that the achievement of food security and improved nutrition outcomes are closely interlinked, and underlines the need to make special efforts to meet the nutritional needs of women, children, older persons and persons with disabilities, as well as those living in vulnerable situations, through targeted and effective programming;

Reaffirms the importance of adopting forward-looking economic policies that lead to sustained, inclusive and equitable economic growth and sustainable development and which increase employment opportunities, promote agriculture development and reduce poverty;

Remains deeply concerned by food crises and their negative impact on health and nutrition, especially in the Horn of Africa and other vulnerable regions, and, in this regard, underlines the urgent need for joint efforts at all levels to respond in a coherent and effective manner to these crises;

Welcomes the Declaration of the Summit on the Horn of Africa Crisis, held in Nairobi on 8 and 9 September 2011, which encouraged farmers and investors in agriculture to put more resources into agriculture in the high potential and arid and semi-arid lands to enhance food security and, in this regard, supported the Dry Land Initiative that was launched by six Horn of Africa countries to promote integrated rural development, as well as regional projects to address the underlying causes of vulnerability in drought-prone areas, with particular emphasis on pastoralists and agro-pastoralists, and to promote disaster risk reduction, ecosystem rehabilitation and sustainable livelihood practices;

Also welcomes, in this context, the strong leadership shown by African countries in undertaking initiatives to address the challenges of sustainable agriculture development and to achieve food security, such as the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, that can provide a framework through which support for agriculture and food security can be coordinated, and calls upon the international community to support Africa in the implementation of the various programmes under the New Partnership for Africa’s Development;

Recognizes that underdevelopment, desertification and land degradation, as well as extreme weather events, inter alia, have contributed to undermining the livelihoods of the poor and people in vulnerable situations in the Horn of Africa and other vulnerable regions, and calls for an integrated approach at all levels in the form of immediate and medium- and long-term actions to address food security and nutrition;

Promotes a significant expansion of research on food and agriculture, and its funding, including by strengthening the work of the reformed Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, supporting national research systems, public universities and research institutions, and promoting technology transfer, sharing of knowledge and practices and research to adapt to and mitigate climate change and improve equitable access to research results and technologies at the national, regional and international levels, while giving due consideration to the preservation of genetic resources;

Stresses the need to address the root causes of excessive food price volatility, including its structural causes, at all levels, and the need to manage the risks linked to high and excessively volatile prices in agriculture commodities and their consequences for global food security and nutrition, as well as for smallholder farmers and poor urban dwellers;

Recognizes the need to support a comprehensive and coordinated response to address the multiple and complex causes of the global food crisis, including the adoption of political, economic, social, financial and technical solutions in the short, medium and long terms by national Governments and the international community, including for mitigating the impact of high and excessively volatile food prices on developing countries; the relevant United Nations organizations have an important role to play in this regard;

Underlines the importance of timely, accurate and transparent information in helping to address excessive food price volatility, and in this regard takes note of the Agricultural Market Information System hosted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and urges the participating international organizations, private sector actors and Governments to ensure the public dissemination of timely and quality food market information products;

Urges Member States and international organizations to pursue policies and strategies that improve the functioning of domestic, regional and international markets and ensure equitable access for all to those markets, especially smallholder and women farmers in developing countries, notes the importance of non-trade-distorting special measures that are consistent with the rules of the World Trade Organization aimed at creating incentives for smallholder farmers in developing countries to enable them to increase their productivity and to compete on a more equal footing in world food markets, and urges Member States to refrain from taking measures that are inconsistent with the rules of the World Trade Organization and that have adverse impacts on global, regional and national food security;

Stresses that a universal, rules-based, open, non-discriminatory and equitable multilateral trading system will promote agriculture and rural development in developing countries and contribute to world food security, and urges national, regional and international strategies to promote the participation of farmers, especially smallholder farmers, including women, in community, domestic, regional and international markets;

Also stresses the need to remove food export restrictions or extraordinary taxes for food purchased for non-commercial humanitarian purposes by the World Food Programme, and not to impose them in the future;

Calls upon Member States and the World Trade Organization to take measures to promote trade policies that would be capable of promoting further trade in agriculture products, identifying the obstacles to trade which have the most serious impact on the world’s poor and contributing to supporting small-scale and marginalized producers in developing countries;

Recognizes the urgency of, and reaffirms its commitment to, reaching an early and successful conclusion of the Doha Round of World Trade Organization negotiations with a balanced, ambitious, comprehensive and development-oriented outcome as a key action to improve food security;

Encourages efforts at all levels to establish and strengthen social protection measures and programmes, including national safety nets and protection programmes for the needy and vulnerable such as food- and cash-for-work, cash-transfer and voucher programmes, school feeding programmes and mother-and-child nutrition programmes;

Reaffirms the need to include prevention and mitigation measures for the poor and smallholder farmers, particularly women in developing countries, appropriate to their national context and circumstances and in accordance with their capacities, especially when excessive food price volatility causes access and market disruptions in the short, medium and long term within the context of local, national, regional and international development policies, taking into account World Trade Organization rules and provisions;

Supports concrete initiatives aimed at improving protection for the most vulnerable against excessive price volatility through risk management strategies, tools and instruments, such as the development of the pilot project led by the Economic Community of West African States for a targeted regional emergency humanitarian food reserve, consistent with annex 2 to the World Trade Organization agreements;

Recognizes the importance of smallholder farmers in developing countries, including women and local and indigenous communities, in ensuring food security and nutrition, reducing poverty and preserving ecosystems, and the need to assist their development;

Notes the challenges faced by indigenous peoples in the context of food security, and in this regard calls upon States to take special actions to combat the root causes of the disproportionately high level of hunger and malnutrition among indigenous peoples;

Stresses the need to strengthen the capacity of smallholder and women farmers as a strategy to enhance agriculture development and food security by promoting equitable access to land, water, financial resources and technologies in accordance with national legislation, as well as improving smallholder farmers’ participation in and access to sustainable agriculture value chains and markets;

Underlines the need for substantial additional investment and better policies in support of sustainable agricultural development, especially smallholder agriculture, in order for many of the poorest countries to reach the poverty and hunger targets of the Millennium Development Goals;

Stresses the need to increase sustainable agricultural production to augment the availability and quality of food, including through long-term investment, equitable access of smallholder farmers, including women, to markets, credit and inputs, improved land-use planning, crop diversification, commercialization, development of an adequate rural infrastructure and enhanced market access for developing countries, as well as sound water management, including efficient irrigation, water harvesting and storage and the appropriate management of relevant facilities, and the development of strong agriculture value chains and investment in rural infrastructure, which are critical to accelerating progress in order to achieve the hunger-related Millennium Development Goals;

Recognizes the urgent need to finalize the negotiations on the voluntary guidelines on the responsible governance of tenure of land, fisheries and forests in the context of national food security, which will underpin smallholder investment in agriculture;

Also recognizes the importance of agricultural investment, including foreign direct investment, through, inter alia, the private sector in enhancing agriculture development and food security as well as the need to promote responsible international investment in agriculture, and therefore calls for all investors to conduct agricultural practices in accordance with national legislation, taking into account national sovereignty over natural resources, environmental sustainability and the importance of promoting the well-being and improving the livelihood of local communities and indigenous peoples, as appropriate;

Supports an inclusive consultation process for the development and the broader ownership of principles for responsible agricultural investment that enhances food security and nutrition, and acknowledges that the first step of this consultation process will be to develop terms of reference that include the scope, purpose, intended recipients and structure of those principles as well as the format of the consultation process, taking into account existing frameworks, such as the principles for responsible agricultural investment developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and the World Bank;

Encourages international, regional and national efforts to strengthen the capacity of developing countries, in particular their small-scale producers, in order to enhance the productivity and nutritional quality of food crops and to promote sustainable practices in pre-harvest and post-harvest agricultural activities;

Underlines the need to achieve food security and nutrition through sustainable agriculture in a manner that addresses the multiplicity of social needs, without jeopardizing options for future generations;

Also underlines the need to continue to take into account sustainable agriculture development and food security as an integral part of the three pillars of sustainable development as identified at the 2005 World Summit (economic development, social development and environmental protection);

Stresses the need to continue to strengthen cooperation among the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the World Food Programme, regional commissions and all other relevant entities of the United Nations system and other intergovernmental organizations, the international financial institutions and international trade, financial and economic institutions, in accordance with their respective mandates, in order to increase their effectiveness, as well as to strengthen cooperation with non-governmental organizations and the private sector in promoting and strengthening efforts towards agriculture development and food security and nutrition;

Requests the Secretary-General to continue to ensure that a coordinated follow-up to the 2009 World Summit on Food Security is undertaken at the field level in the context of the resident coordinator system, taking into account the coordinated follow-up to major international conferences of the United Nations;

Invites the Chair of the Committee on World Food Security to report, as part of the Committee’s report to the General Assembly at its sixty-seventh session, through the Economic and Social Council, on the implementation of the reform of, and on progress made towards achieving the vision of, the Committee;

Requests the Secretary-General to report to the General Assembly at its sixty-seventh session on developments related to issues highlighted in the present resolution and on the progress in the implementation of the outcome of the 2009 World Summit on Food Security;

Decides to include in the provisional agenda of its sixty-seventh session the item entitled “Agriculture development and food security”.

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Agriculture Development and Food Security

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