The Right to Food

A/HRC/RES/52/16View PDF

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

A Resolution of the Human Rights Council, under agenda item 3 Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development, published in 2023.

What else is in this group?

42 documents · 2002–2026

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

Year	Symbol	Title	Word length	Text similarity
2026	A/HRC/RES/61/13	The right to food	3,279	–
2025	A/RES/80/210	The right to food	6,246	–
2024	A/RES/79/171	The right to food	6,140	–
2024	A/HRC/RES/55/4	The right to food	2,906	–
2023	A/RES/78/198	The right to food	6,097	–

This group bundles related documents that are not individually ordered.

What subjects does this mandate have?

7 subjects

Agricultural Development Anti-Discrimination Measures Food Security Gender Mainstreaming Hunger Malnutrition Right to Food

What’s in this document?

29 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 and nutritious 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 deep concern that, owing to the crisis resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, between 83 and 132 million more people have fallen into moderate or severe food insecurity;

Also expresses deep concern at the existing setbacks to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals 1 and 2, aimed at eradicating poverty and hunger respectively, and at the imminent and increasing danger that the targets outlined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development will be missed;

Considers it intolerable that, as estimated by the United Nations Children’s Fund, nearly half of all deaths of children under the age of 5 are attributable to undernutrition, which puts children at greater risk of dying from common infections, increases the frequency and severity of such infections and delays recovery;

Expresses its great 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, malnutrition, 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 and nutrition programmes and to take action to address de jure and de facto gender inequality and discrimination against women and girls, in particular where such inequality and discrimination contribute to the malnutrition of women and girls, including by taking measures to ensure the full and equal realization of the right to food and taking steps to ensure that women and girls have equal access to social protection and resources, including income, land and water, and their ownership, and full and equal access to health care, education, science and technology, to enable them to feed themselves and their families, and in this regard stresses the need to empower women and to strengthen their role in decision-making;

Takes note of the report of the Special Rapporteur on the right to food;²

²A/HRC/52/40.

Recognizes the importance of giving due consideration to the adverse impact of climate change on the full realization of the right to food;

Reiterates 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 and recover from droughts, tackle water scarcity and ensure the preservation and sustainable use of ecosystems;

Recognizes the importance of smallholder and family farmers and peasants in developing countries, including women, local and Indigenous communities, in ensuring food security and nutrition, reducing poverty and preserving ecosystems, and the need to assist their development;

Reaffirms the need to ensure that programmes delivering safe, sufficient, nutritious and culturally accepted food are inclusive and accessible to persons with disabilities;

Encourages States to promote the conditions for everyone to be free from hunger and, as soon as possible, to enjoy fully the right to food, and, where appropriate, to consider establishing appropriate institutional mechanisms and adopting national policies to combat hunger;

Recognizes the advances made through South-South and triangular cooperation in developing countries and regions in connection with food security and nutrition and the development of agricultural production for the full realization of the right to food, while reaffirming the key role of North-South cooperation;

Also recognizes the importance of traditional sustainable agricultural practices, inter alia, traditional seed supply systems, and access to locally adapted seeds, including for many Indigenous Peoples and local communities;

Stresses that the primary responsibility of States is to promote and protect the right to food, including in humanitarian emergencies, 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, in particular through agricultural development assistance, the transfer of technology, capacity-building, technical assistance, the fulfilment of official development assistance commitments, food crop rehabilitation assistance and food aid, achieving food security, with special attention paid to the specific needs of women and girls, and promoting support for the development of adapted technologies, research on rural advisory services and support for access to financing services, and to ensure support for the establishment of secure land tenure systems;

Calls upon States to consider reviewing any policy or measure that could have a negative impact on the realization of the right to food, in particular the right of everyone to be free from hunger, before instituting such a policy or measure;

Recalls the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the outcome document of the high-level plenary meeting of the General Assembly known as the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples,³ and acknowledges that many Indigenous organizations and representatives of Indigenous Peoples have expressed in different forums their deep concern over the obstacles and challenges to the full enjoyment of the right to food that Indigenous Peoples face, and calls upon States to take action to address those obstacles and challenges and the continuous discrimination against Indigenous Peoples;

³General Assembly resolution 69/2.

Recognizes the contributions of peasants, smallholders, family farmers and other people working and living in rural areas in all regions of the world to development and in ensuring the right to food, food security and nutrition, which are fundamental to attaining the Sustainable Development Goals and implementing the 2030 Agenda;

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

Invites all relevant international organizations, including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, to avoid any actions that could have a negative impact on the realization of the right to food;

Encourages the Special Rapporteur on the right to food to continue to take into account the links between human rights and trade policy perspectives, agriculture, food systems and global governance, and to cooperate with relevant international organizations to ensure that the international trade regime and the global economic architecture are geared to fulfilling the right to food;

Also encourages the Special Rapporteur 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 that address the right to food and food insecurity to integrate and effectively implement a gender perspective in their relevant policies, programmes and activities regarding access to food;

Further encourages the Special Rapporteur to continue his collaboration with United Nations agencies, funds and programmes, and international financial institutions, and to facilitate the cooperation among them, in order to contribute to ensuring that the right to food is promoted further within these organizations, in accordance with their mandates, including for the advancement of smallholders and agricultural workers in both developing and least developed countries;

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 the effective fulfilment of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur;

Calls upon all Governments to cooperate with and assist the Special Rapporteur by supplying all necessary information requested by the mandate holder, and to give serious consideration to responding favourably to the requests of the Special Rapporteur to visit their countries to enable more effective fulfilment of the mandate;

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

Requests the Special Rapporteur to report annually on the implementation of the mandate to the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly in accordance with their programmes of work;

Decides to continue its consideration of this matter under the same agenda item in accordance with its programme of work.

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

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What subjects does this mandate have?

What’s in this document?

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