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The Global Network for the Right to Food and Nutrition was launched in Vienna on 24 June 2013 as part of the Vienna+20 action week, celebrated 20 years after UN World Conference on Human Rights. The Network has 20 founding organizations aiming to open space for dialogue and mobilization to hold states accountable and support social movements and groups standing up to violations of the right to adequate food and nutrition.
24 June, 2013 | FIAN International
Launch of Global Network for the Right to Food and Nutrition
24 June 2013, Vienna - After two years of consultation, the Global Network for the Right to Food and Nutrition will be publicly launched in Austria on 24 June 2013, as part of the Vienna+20 action week, commemorating 20 years of the 1993 UN World Conference on Human Rights.
The launch of the network is a milestone in building joint action of public interest civil society organizations and social movements to act in concert for the realization of one of the most violated human rights worldwide - the human right to adequate food and nutrition.
The Network is an initiative of public interest civil society organizations and international social movements, including peasants, fisherfolk, pastoralists, indigenous peoples, and food and agricultural workers. To date, 20 international social movements and civil society organizations have confirmed their membership in the Network, which opens a space for dialogue and mobilization of its members to hold States accountable for their obligation to realize the right to food and nutrition.
It supports the struggles of social movements and groups that, as a result of standing up to violations of these rights, may suffer from repression, violence, and criminalization. Additionally the Network will work towards ending the impunity of state-condoned human rights violations and of non-state actors human rights abuses.
At the launch meeting, founding members of the global network from Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas will explain why there is a need for this initiative, based on their experiences in local, national and international struggles to fight violations of the right to food and nutrition.
The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate food, Olivier De Schutter, will speak about the role of civil society in strengthening right to adequate food accountability. "The right to food is not a symbol: it's a tool. The involvement of those on the frontline of hunger and malnutrition shaping the policies that affect them, and the creation of avenues allowing the poor to hold governments accountable, are both key to successful food security strategies. Only by working with the poor can we work for the poor."
The Network’s Call for Action states: “All human beings, without discrimination, are entitled to enjoy the full realization of the human right to adequate food and nutrition. This right guarantees people’s informed participation in the decision making and elaboration of public policies assuring an economically, politically, socially, and ecologically sustainable supply of adequate and nutritious food within the frameworks of food and of people's sovereignty.”
The 20 founding members of the Network are:
World Organization against Torture (OMCT); World Forum of Fish Workers and Fish Harvesters (WFF); World Forum of Fisher People (WFFP); World Alliance of Mobile and Indigenous Peoples (WAMIP); Terra Nuova; Right to Food Campaign India; Peoples’ Health Movement (PHM), Observatori DESC; ICCO; Inter-American Platform for Human Rights, Democracy and Development (PIDHDD); International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN); International Indian Treaty Council (IITC); International Union of Food Workers; FIAN International; Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance (EAA); Dan Church Aid (DCA); Centro Internazionale Crocevia; CIDSE international alliance of Catholic development agencies; Brot für die Welt; African Right to Food Network (ANoRF-RAPDA)
Fian International: Press release 24 June, 2013.
Read the Call to Action here.
Read the full Network charter here.
View the invitation to the launch event here.
