Global Policy Forum

by Kanaga Raja

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Jean Ziegler, has expressed outrage that global hunger is still on the rise despite commitments made by governments to reduce hunger in 1996 at the first World Food Summit and again at the Millennium Summit in 2000.

In his report (A/HRC/4/30) to the fifth session of the Human Rights Council (11-18 June), the human rights expert said that there has been virtually no progress made on reducing hunger. While in 1996, the number of people suffering from under-nourishment was estimated to be about 800 million people, latest estimates from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization suggest that there are now 854 million people who do not get enough to eat everyday. More than 6 million children die from hunger-related illness every year before their fifth birthday. "This is unacceptable. All human beings have the right to live in dignity, free from hunger," said Ziegler. "Our world is richer than ever, yet more people than ever are suffering from malnutrition, hunger and starvation. The world produces more food than ever, it could feed twice the entire global population, yet millions go to bed hungry at night." "In a world overflowing with riches, hunger is not inevitable. It is a violation of human rights. The right to food is a human right that protects the right of all human beings to live in dignity, free from hunger," said Ziegler.

At a media briefing Thursday, Ziegler said that the overall situation this year was worse than last year. There were 854 million people in the world - one in every six human beings - who were gravely undernourished. This represents an increase of 12 million, from 842 million people last year. Ziegler said that this is happening on a planet where 12 billion people could be nourished normally every day. In his report, the Special Rapporteur commended a number of positive developments by governments in combating hunger. For instance, in September 2006, the Bolivian Parliament adopted a groundbreaking land reform bill, proposed by President Evo Morales to redistribute underused land to rural communities, especially indigenous communities. This new law states that only land that is unused or has been corruptly obtained will be used for redistribution. If properly and efficiently implemented, this law could lead to redistributing up to 20 million hectares of land, mostly to indigenous people, and to improving their livelihoods and access to food. About 41% of Bolivia's population, the majority indigenous people in rural areas, suffer from poverty and do not have access to adequate food each day, said Ziegler.

Venezuela has distributed more than 3 million hectares of land to farmers, and provided credit to more than 3 million farmers, as part of its land reform. In 2005, 11.36 million Venezuelans benefited from Mercal food programs on a regular basis. Mission Mercal, which was launched in 2003, is aimed at creating subsidized grocery stores through a State-run company called Mercal, to help communities to become self-sufficient by replacing food imports with products from local farmers, small businesses and cooperatives.

According to the Special Rapporteur, South Africa continues to be one of the best examples in the world of the justifiability of economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to food and the right to water, with positive impacts on the life of millions of people. The South African Bill of Rights, which is incorporated into the 1996 Constitution, explicitly provides that every person in South Africa has the right to access to sufficient food and water, and that the State shall respect, protect and fulfill the realization of these rights.

The Special Rapporteur also called the Council's attention to several situations of serious concern related to the right to food, especially in the Darfur region of Sudan, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in countries in the Horn of Africa region and in North Korea. Ziegler said that in the Darfur region of Sudan, violence is causing terrible human casualties and violations of the right to food, including the pillaging of crops, food and livestock, destruction of water points, the forced displacement of people from their lands and the disruption of food assistance.

The Special Rapporteur's report also focuses on the silent tragedy of children suffering and dying from hunger and malnutrition. About 5.6 million children die every year before they reach the age of five. About one in every four children around the world is underweight for their age and more than 96% of low birth weight babies are born to underweight mothers in the developing world, reflecting a generational cycle of under-nutrition, the consequences of which are passed along to children by mothers who are themselves in poor health and undernourished. Although there has been some recent progress in reducing global levels of malnutrition, the Special Rapporteur raised concerns that the Millennium Development Goal to halve the number of underweight children by 2015 will not be met. Under-nutrition causes more than half of all deaths of children under five years old. About 100 million children are still lacking sufficient vitamin A, essential for immune system functions and their survival, growth and development. Millions suffer from iodine deficiency disorders, which prevent normal growth in the brain and nervous system, yet it is easily preventable through the simple iodization of salt. The report also said that unsafe water and a lack of basic sanitation and hygiene every year kill more than 1.5 million children. Around the world, approximately 125 million children under five years of age have no access to an improved drinking water source, and around 280 million children under five have no access to improved sanitation facilities.

Ziegler said that the obligation to fulfill the right to food requires governments to take steps to address hunger and poverty of children. School meal programmes are one example of measures to fulfill the right to food. To this end, the Special Rapporteur welcomed the examples of India, South Africa, Cuba and Brazil, which have been at the forefront of efforts to make school meals an entitlement.

The report also noted that in many regions of the world, particularly in Africa, famine, destitution and chronic hunger are forcing people to leave their homes, land and even their countries. According to Ziegler, hunger and famine are due not only to drought, but also to economic problems as well as political problems of corruption and mismanagement. "It is also due to the hypocritical policies of developed countries on agriculture and climate change, which are further contributing to hunger, poverty and inequality in developing countries." Yet hunger and violations of the human right to food are still not seen by the international community as good enough reasons or sufficient legal grounds for people to flee their countries. Ziegler said that tens of thousands of people fleeing from hunger and famine and crossing borders, especially if they try to flee to developed countries, are treated as "illegal migrants", arrested and held in often appalling conditions in detention and processing centers. The situation is particularly dramatic for people fleeing from sub-Saharan Africa. It is estimated that about 2 million people try to enter the European Union illegally every year, and about 2,000 of them drown in the Mediterranean Sea. In a world where the richer countries are getting richer and the poorer are getting poorer, migration is an obvious response, said Ziegler.

The report cited a new study by the World Institute for Development Economics Research (WIDER) of the United Nations University, which shows how extreme global inequality has become, with most of the world's wealth heavily concentrated in North America, Europe and high-income Asia-Pacific countries, including Australia and Japan. People in these countries collectively hold almost 90% of the world's total wealth, while the poorer half of the world's population owns barely 1% of global wealth. "If migrants are fleeing from famine, chronic hunger and deprivation, then we must call into question whether such migration is 'voluntary'," said Ziegler.

Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region of the world where levels of hunger have been constantly increasing since 1990. Between 1990 and 2001, the number of chronically undernourished people is estimated to have increased from 169 million to 206 million people. Environmental degradation, desertification and global climate change are also exacerbating destitution and desperation, especially in the highly arid countries of Sahelian Africa, said the report. In 1995, the UN estimated that there were already 25 million people forced to leave their homes for environmental reasons, mostly from sub-Saharan Africa.

However, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has estimated that, by 2050, there may be as many as 150 million "environmental refugees" – people forced to leave their homes and lands for environmental reasons linked to global climate change, including desertification and land degradation. Policies in developed countries are further exacerbating these effects – energy consumption in the North is contributing to global climate change, with the effects felt primarily in the South. Agricultural policies in the North are also having destructive effects on agricultural livelihoods and hunger in the South.

At the media briefing, Ziegler said that the European Union is massively creating hunger in Africa through its agrarian dumping policies. The dumping policy of the EU is destroying African agriculture. Of the 52 countries in Africa, 37 are purely agricultural states. The Special Rapporteur stressed that refugees from hunger should not be confused with other categories of so-called "economic refugees". "An economic refugee may be somebody who seeks a better life by migrating to another country. He does so voluntarily. The refugee from hunger does not move voluntarily. He is forced to flee. Hunger is an immediate threat to his life, and the lives of his family. He has no choice." Today, however, most governments treat crossing international frontiers to be free from hunger as an illegal act. Ziegler considered this response to be a shame on humanity.

The human rights expert's report made a number of recommendations including that governments should follow the recent examples of Brazil, Guatemala, India, South Africa, Venezuela and Bolivia in the implementation of the right to food at the national level. Ziegler encouraged governments to adopt an adequate legal framework to ensure the right to food for all, including and in particular for the most vulnerable.

All governments should also take immediate steps to eliminate child hunger. This should include programmes to address food security and adequate livelihoods, as well as nutritional security, especially in vitamin A, iron and iodine deficiencies and the promotion of breastfeeding. School meal programmes should be universalized and should ensure adequate nutrition for all children. All governments and international agencies were urged to address the root causes of migration and armed conflict, including realizing the right to food in those countries where people have little option but to flee their own countries or where children are forced to enlist in armed groups in order to procure food for themselves and their families. Governments should not expel, return or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he/she would be in danger of suffering from hunger, chronic under-nutrition or violations of the right to food. Governments should also recognize that refugees from hunger have the right to seek asylum and the right to temporary refuge during famine, said the report.

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