71st Session of the United Nations General Assembly 3nd Committee – Agenda Item 68 – Human Rights

 

71st Session of the United Nations General Assembly

3nd Committee – Agenda Item 68 – Human Rights

Statement by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Delivered by the Director of the FAO Liaison Office to the UN, Carla Mucavi

31 October 2016, United Nations

 

Mr. Chairperson,

 

Thank you for giving me the floor.

 

FAO is grateful for the opportunity to participate in this discussion and would like to welcome the interim report of Ms. Hilal Elver, Special Rapporteur on the right to food, in stressing the importance of a rights-based approach to ensure access to nutritious food for all.

 

While commendable progress has been made in reducing hunger and malnutrition over the years, around 800 million people remain chronically undernourished. At the same time, 1.9 billion people are overweight, including 600 million which are obese.

 

FAO works to ensure the right to food by working with partners to tackle the multiple, interlinked challenges that hinder progress.

 

Shifting changes in lifestyles, partially due to urbanization combined with the economic and food crisis, have taken an increasing toll on the realization of the right to adequate food for all.

 

Here, FAO believes it is important to emphasize the centrality of food and the importance of care to mitigate this trend.

 

Discrimination against women, which restricts women’s access to land, credit, and other resources, also lessen some of the progress made in the fight against hunger and malnutrition.

 

By promoting the interdependence of human rights and the correlation between the 17 sustainable development goals, FAO carries out actions with its partners to address discriminations against women and to foster an empowering environment for them to be central actors in the realization of the right to adequate food.

 

In addition, FAO works with parliamentarians in Latin America and the Caribbean, and more recently, in Africa and Europe, to support countries and regions in developing an enabling environment for food systems that contribute to healthy diets.

 

As such, a wide array of activities are undertaken by the Organization and its partners, including joint work on school food programs, food labelling, and access to proper and reliable information, which represent one important component towards improving eating habits.

 

FAO also assists Member States to develop the knowledge and guidance necessary to ensure food security and nutrition, through its Voluntary Guidelines – including those on the Right to Food; the Responsible Governance of Tenure, and Securing Sustainable Small-scale Fisheries, among many other guiding documents.

 

Mr. Chairperson,

 

In concluding let me mention, as also referenced to by the Special Rapporteur, that the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition, adopted earlier this year, places nutrition at the heart of sustainable development.

 

FAO, through the formulation and implementation of policies and programmes, institutional building, capacity development, and other means, continues to stand ready to assist Member States towards the elimination of huger and to ensure food security and nutrition for all.

 

Thank you.