The new edition of the Samudra report on Building Back and Building Forward (No. 83, Sept. 2020)

The new edition of the Samudra Report of the International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF) is now available! This special edition complements ICSF’s campaign celebrating the contributions of small-scale fisheries to food security and nutrition within a human rights-based framework, reflecting on the worrying impacts of Covid-19 on the small-scale fisheries sector.

The article “Fish for food” analyzes how the international democratic process has come a long way in realizing the important contribution of fish to the progressive realization of the right to adequate food and nutrition.

Within this context, international instruments such as the SSF Guidelines, the 2014 HLPE report on “sustainable fisheries and aquaculture for food security and nutrition”,  and the Right to Food Guidelines paved the way for numerous projects and activities developed by different actors, including FAO. The article highlights some of these programmes and projects, such as:

• The importance of fish consumption during the first 1,000 days of life (from conception to the child’s second birthday);
• The inclusion of fish in home-grown school feeding programs as a unique opportunity to improve food and nutrition for children and link small-scale producers to public procurement;  
• The importance of fish consumption for indigenous peoples as in the case of the Brazilian Amazon;
• The contribution small-scale fisheries to livelihoods, food security and nutrition, through case studies under the “Illuminating Hidden Harvests” project
• The integral role of women and their organizations in the small-scale fisheries post-harvest sector, with the goal of increasing the supply and consumption of safe fish and fisheries products (through reduced food loss and waste, improved post-harvest practices, etc.).

Despite the progress made by the various programmes and projects described in the article, much remains to be done within the international human rights context in the work of FAO, CFS and their partners for the full recognition of fish for food security and nutrition in programmes and strategies, which constitutes a necessary endeavor for the realization of the right to adequate food and achieving the SDG’s by 2030.

To read the article, click here. For the full Samudra report No. 83, click here.