The Right to Food

A/RES/79/171View PDF

Who created this mandate?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 71bHuman rights questions, including alternative approaches for improving the effective enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms, published in 2024.

What else is in this group?

42 documents · 2002–2026

Newer documents in this group exist (latest: 2026).

2026A/HRC/RES/61/13The right to foodCompare with earlier document
2025A/RES/80/210The right to foodCompare with earlier document
2024A/RES/79/171The right to foodCompare with earlier document
2024A/HRC/RES/55/4The right to foodCompare with earlier document
2023A/RES/78/198The right to foodCompare with earlier document

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What subjects does this mandate have?

5 topics

Food Policy Food Security Hunger Malnutrition Right to Food

What does this mandate say?

54 operative paragraphs

Reaffirms that hunger constitutes an outrage and a violation of human dignity and therefore requires the adoption of urgent measures at the national, regional and international levels for its elimination;

Also reaffirms the right of everyone to have access to safe, sufficient, nutritious and sustainably produced food, consistent with the right to adequate food and the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger, so as to be able to fully develop and maintain his or her physical and mental capacities;

Expresses its concern at the fact that the effects created by the world food crisis still continue to have serious consequences for the poorest and most vulnerable people, particularly in developing countries, which have been further aggravated by the impacts of the world financial and economic crisis, and at the particular effects of the crisis on many net food-importing countries, especially the least developed countries;

Underlines that the pandemic has exacerbated existing high levels of acute food insecurity, and calls upon Member States and other relevant stakeholders to consider the fulfilment of the right to food as part of the recovery from the pandemic by, inter alia, keeping food and agriculture supply chains functioning, ensuring the continued trade in and movement of food and livestock, products and inputs essential for agricultural and food production to markets, minimizing food loss and waste, supporting workers and farmers, including women farmers, in agriculture and food supply chains to continue their essential work, including cross-border, in a safe manner, mobilizing and allocating adequate resources and enhancing institutional and training capacities for an accelerated implementation of sustainable agriculture and food systems, providing continued access to adequate, safe, affordable and nutritious food, and providing adequate social safety nets and assistance to minimize the negative effects of loss of livelihoods and increasing food prices on food insecurity and malnutrition;

Expresses its deep concern that, according to the report of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations entitled The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2024: Financing to end hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms, in 2023 between 713 and 757 million people in the world faced hunger, or 1 out of 11 people in the world, and an estimated 28.9 per cent of the global population – 2.33 billion people – were moderately or severely food insecure;

Considers it alarming that, as estimated by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, in 2022, 148 million children under 5 years of age continued to suffer from stunting, 45 million from wasting and 37 million from overweight;

Expresses its deep concern that, while women contribute more than 50 per cent of the food produced worldwide, they also account for 70 per cent of the world’s hungry, that women and girls are disproportionately affected by hunger, food insecurity and poverty, in part as a result of gender inequality and discrimination, that in many countries girls are twice as likely as boys to die from malnutrition and preventable childhood diseases, and that it is estimated that almost twice as many women as men suffer from malnutrition;

Encourages all States to mainstream a gender perspective in food security programmes and to take action to address de jure and de facto gender inequality and discrimination against women, in particular when they contribute to the malnutrition of women and girls, including measures to ensure the full and equal realization of the right to food and that women have equal access to resources, including income, land and water and their ownership and agricultural inputs, as well as full and equal access to healthcare, education, science and technology, to enable them to feed themselves and their families, and in this regard stresses the need to empower all women and strengthen their role in decision-making;

Encourages the Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights Council on the right to food to continue to mainstream a gender perspective in the fulfilment of his mandate, and encourages the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and all other United Nations bodies and mechanisms addressing the right to food and food insecurity and malnutrition to continue to integrate a gender perspective into their relevant policies, programmes and activities;

Reaffirms the need to ensure that programmes delivering safe and nutritious food are inclusive of and accessible to persons with disabilities;

Stresses that the primary responsibility of States is to promote and protect the right to food and that the international community should provide, through a coordinated response and upon request, international cooperation in support of national and regional efforts by providing the assistance necessary to increase food production and access to food, including through agricultural development assistance, the transfer of technology, food crop rehabilitation assistance and food aid, ensuring food security, with special attention to the specific needs of women, youth and girls, and promoting innovation, support for agricultural training and the development of adapted technologies, research on rural advisory services and support for access to financing services, and ensure support for the establishment of secure land tenure systems;

Calls upon all States and, if appropriate, relevant international organizations to take measures and support programmes that are aimed at combating undernutrition in mothers, in particular during pregnancy and breastfeeding, and in children, and the irreversible effects of chronic undernutrition in early childhood, in particular from birth to the age of 2 years;

Also calls upon all States and, where appropriate, relevant international organizations to implement policies and programmes to reduce and eliminate preventable mortality and morbidity, as a result of malnutrition, of children under 5 years of age, and in this regard urges States to disseminate the technical guidance prepared by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, in collaboration with the World Health Organization, and to apply it, as appropriate, in the design, implementation, evaluation and monitoring of laws, policies, programmes, budgets and mechanisms for remedy and redress aimed at eliminating preventable mortality and morbidity of children under 5 years of age;

Encourages all States to take steps, with a view to progressively achieving the full realization of the right to food, including steps to promote the conditions for everyone to be free from hunger and, as soon as possible, to enjoy fully the right to food, and to create and adopt national plans and legislation to combat hunger;

Recognizes the advances made through South-South cooperation in developing countries and regions in connection with food security and the development of agricultural production for the full realization of the right to food;

Stresses that improving access to productive resources and responsible public investment in rural development, taking into consideration the Principles for Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Systems, as endorsed by the Committee on World Food Security, is essential for eradicating hunger and poverty, in particular in developing countries, including through the promotion of investment, including private investment, in appropriate small-scale irrigation and water management technologies in order to reduce vulnerability to droughts and to tackle water scarcity;

Recognizes the critical contribution made by the fisheries sector to the realization of the right to food and to food security and the contribution of small-scale fishers to the local food security of coastal communities;

Also recognizes that 70 per cent of hungry people live in rural areas, where nearly half a billion family farmers are located, and that these people are especially vulnerable to food insecurity, given the increasing cost of inputs and the fall in farm incomes; that access to land, water, seeds and other natural resources is an increasing challenge for poor producers; that sustainable and gender-sensitive agricultural policies are important tools for promoting land and agrarian reform, rural credit and insurance, technical assistance and other associated measures to achieve food security and rural development; and that support by States for small farmers, fishing communities and local enterprises, including through the facilitation of access for their products to national and international markets and empowerment of small producers, particularly women, in value chains, is a key element for food security and the provision of the right to food;

Stresses the importance of fighting hunger in rural areas, including through national efforts supported by international partnerships to stop desertification and land degradation and to mitigate the effects of drought and through investments and public policies that are specifically appropriate to the risk of drylands, and in this regard calls for the full implementation of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in Those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, Particularly in Africa;

Urges States that have not yet done so to favourably consider becoming parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity and to consider becoming parties to the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture as a matter of priority;

Recognizes the important role of Indigenous Peoples and their traditional knowledge and seed supply systems, as well as the important role of new technologies, in the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and in aiming to ensure food security and improved nutrition;

Recalls the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, acknowledges that many Indigenous organizations and representatives of Indigenous Peoples have expressed in different forums their deep concerns over the obstacles and challenges they face in achieving the full enjoyment of the right to food, and calls upon States to take special actions to combat the root causes of the disproportionately high level of hunger and malnutrition among Indigenous Peoples and the continuous discrimination against them;

Also recalls the outcome document of the high-level plenary meeting of the General Assembly known as the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples, held on 22 and 23 September 2014, and the commitment to developing, in conjunction with the Indigenous Peoples concerned and where appropriate, policies, programmes and resources to support Indigenous Peoples’ occupations, traditional subsistence activities, economies, livelihoods, food security and nutrition;

Notes the need to further examine various concepts, such as “food sovereignty”, and their relation to food security and nutrition, and the right to food, bearing in mind the need to avoid any negative impact on the enjoyment of the right to food for all people at all times;

Requests all States and private actors, as well as international organizations, within their respective mandates, to take fully into account the need to promote the effective realization of the right to food for all;

Recognizes the need to strengthen national commitment, as well as international assistance, upon the request of and in cooperation with the affected countries, towards the full realization and protection of the right to food, and in particular to develop national protection mechanisms for people forced to leave their homes and land because of hunger or humanitarian emergencies affecting their enjoyment of the right to food;

Takes note with appreciation of the growing movement, in different regions of the world, towards the adoption of framework laws, national strategies and measures in support of the full realization of the right to food for all;

Stresses the need to make efforts to mobilize and optimize the allocation and utilization of technical and financial resources from all sources, including external debt relief for developing countries, and to reinforce national actions to implement sustainable food security policies;

Calls for a successful, development-oriented outcome of the trade negotiations of the World Trade Organization, in particular on the remaining issues of the Doha Development Round, as a contribution to the creation of international conditions permitting the full realization of the right to food;

Stresses that all States should make all efforts to ensure that their international policies of a political and economic nature, including international trade agreements, do not have a negative impact on the right to food in other countries;

Recalls the importance of the New York Declaration on Action against Hunger and Poverty, and recommends the continuation of efforts aimed at identifying additional sources of financing for the fight against hunger and poverty, as well as non-communicable diseases;

Recognizes that the promises made at the World Food Summit in 1996 to halve the number of persons who are undernourished are not being fulfilled, while recognizing the efforts of Member States in this regard, and once again invites all international financial and development institutions, as well as the relevant United Nations agencies and funds, to give priority to and provide the funding necessary to realize the right to food, as set out in the Rome Declaration on World Food Security, and to achieve the aims of Goal 2 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and other food and nutrition-related targets;

Reaffirms that integrating food and nutritional support, with the goal that all people at all times will have access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life, is part of a comprehensive effort to improve public health, alongside the response to the spread of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other communicable diseases;

Urges States to give priority in their development strategies and expenditures to the realization of the right to food;

Stresses the importance of international cooperation and development assistance as an effective contribution to the sustainable expansion and improvement of agriculture and, in particular, its environmental sustainability, food production, breeding projects on diversity of crops and livestock and institutional innovations such as community seed banks, farmer field schools and seed fairs, and to the provision of humanitarian food assistance in activities related to emergency situations for the realization of the right to food and the achievement of sustainable food security, while recognizing that each country has the primary responsibility for ensuring the implementation of national programmes and strategies in this regard;

Stresses that States parties to the World Trade Organization Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights should consider implementing that agreement in a manner that is supportive of food security;

Calls upon Member States, the United Nations system and other relevant stakeholders to support national efforts aimed at responding rapidly to the food crises currently occurring across different regions, and expresses its deep concern that funding shortfalls are forcing the World Food Programme to cut operations across different regions;

Calls upon Member States, the United Nations, humanitarian and development organizations and other relevant actors to urgently and effectively respond to, prevent and prepare for rising global food insecurity affecting millions of people, especially those who are facing famine or the immediate risk of famine, including by enhancing humanitarian and development cooperation and providing urgent funding to respond to the needs of the affected population, and calls upon Member States and parties to armed conflicts to respect international humanitarian law and to ensure and facilitate safe and unhindered humanitarian access;

Calls upon States to heed the urgent United Nations humanitarian appeal to assist countries facing drought, starvation and famine with emergency aid and urgent funding;

Invites all relevant international organizations, including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, to continue to promote policies and projects that have a positive impact on the right to food, to ensure that partners respect the right to food in the implementation of common projects, to support strategies of Member States aimed at the fulfilment of the right to food and to avoid any actions that could have a negative impact on its realization;

Takes note with appreciation of the report of the Special Rapporteur;

Recognizes the importance of giving due consideration to the adverse impacts of climate change on the full realization of the right to food, recalls the Paris Agreement, adopted at the twenty-first session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, held in Paris from 30 November to 13 December 2015, and also recalls the holding of the twenty-eighth session of the Conference of the Parties in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, from 30 November to 13 December 2023;

Also recognizes the impacts of climate change and of the El Niño/Southern Oscillation phenomenon on agricultural production and food security around the world and the importance of designing and implementing actions to reduce its effects, in particular on vulnerable populations, such as rural women and girls, bearing in mind the role that rural women play in supporting their households and communities in achieving food security and nutrition, generating income and improving rural livelihoods and overall well-being;

Reiterates its support for the realization of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur, and requests the Secretary-General and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to continue to provide all the human and financial resources necessary for its effective fulfilment;

Welcomes the work already done by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in promoting the right to adequate food, and recalls in particular its general comments:

No. 12 (1999) on the right to adequate food (article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), in which the Committee affirmed, inter alia, that the right to adequate food is indivisibly linked to the inherent dignity of the human person, indispensable for the fulfilment of other human rights enshrined in the International Bill of Human Rights and inseparable from social justice, requiring the adoption of appropriate economic, environmental and social policies, at both the national and the international levels, oriented to the eradication of poverty and the fulfilment of all human rights for all;

No. 15 (2002) on the right to water (articles 11 and 12 of the Covenant), in which the Committee noted, inter alia, the importance of ensuring sustainable access to water resources for human consumption and agriculture in realization of the right to adequate food;

No. 26 (2022) on land and economic, social and cultural rights, in which the Committee noted, inter alia, the essential role of ensuring secure and equitable access to, use of and control over land for individuals and communities to eradicate hunger and poverty and to guarantee the right to an adequate standard of living, and to guarantee the enjoyment of the right to adequate food;

Takes note with appreciation of the work done by the Committee on World Food Security in order to contribute to achieving and guaranteeing global food security;

Reaffirms that the Voluntary Guidelines to Support the Progressive Realization of the Right to Adequate Food in the Context of National Food Security, adopted by the Council of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in November 2004, represent a useful tool to promote the realization of the right to food for all, contribute to the achievement of food security and thus provide an additional instrument in the attainment of internationally agreed development goals and to support national Governments in the implementation of food security and nutrition policies, programmes and legal frameworks;

Calls upon all Governments to cooperate with and assist the Special Rapporteur in his task, to supply all necessary information requested by him and to give serious consideration to responding favourably to the requests of the Special Rapporteur to visit their countries to enable him to fulfil his mandate more effectively;

Requests the Special Rapporteur to submit to the General Assembly at its eightieth session a report on the implementation of the present resolution and to continue his work, including by examining the emerging issues with regard to the realization of the right to food that are within his mandate, including in the context of the international financial architecture, while taking into consideration relevant legal frameworks;

Invites Governments, relevant United Nations agencies, funds and programmes, treaty bodies, civil society actors and non-governmental organizations, as well as the private sector, to cooperate fully with the Special Rapporteur in the fulfilment of his mandate through, inter alia, the submission of comments and suggestions on ways and means of realizing the right to food;

Decides to continue the consideration of the question at its eightieth session under the item entitled “Promotion and protection of human rights”.

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