The Right to Food

A/RES/72/173View PDF

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 72b Human rights questions, including alternative approaches for improving the effective enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms, published in 2018.

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?

5 subjects

Food Policy Food Security Hunger Malnutrition Right to Food

What’s in this document?

49 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;

Considers it intolerable that, as estimated by the United Nations Children’s Fund, up to 45 per cent of the children who die every year before the age of 5 die from undernutrition and hunger-related illness and that, as estimated by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, about 815 million people in the world suffer from chronic hunger owing to the lack of sufficient food for the conduct of an active and healthy life, including as one of the effects derived from food insecurity, while, according to the latter organization, the planet could produce enough food to feed everyone around the world;

Expresses its concern at the fact that the effects created by the world food crisis still continue to have serious consequences for the poorest and most vulnerable people, particularly in developing countries, which have been further aggravated by the impacts of the world financial and economic crisis, and at the particular effects of the crisis on many net food-importing countries, especially least developed countries;

Expresses its deep concern that, according to the report of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations entitled The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2017, the number of hungry people in the world is unacceptably high and the vast majority of hungry people live in developing countries;

Also expresses its deep 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, 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 programmes and to take action to address de jure and de facto gender inequality and discrimination against women, in particular when they contribute to the malnutrition of women and girls, including measures to ensure the full and equal realization of the right to food and that women have equal access to resources, including income, land and water and their ownership and agricultural inputs, as well as 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 strengthen their role in decision-making;

Encourages the Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights Council on the right to food to continue to mainstream a gender perspective in the fulfilment of her mandate, and encourages the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and all other United Nations bodies and mechanisms addressing the right to food and food insecurity and malnutrition to continue to integrate a gender perspective into their relevant policies, programmes and activities;

Reaffirms the need to ensure that programmes delivering safe and nutritious food are inclusive of and accessible to persons with disabilities;

Stresses that the primary responsibility of States is to promote and protect the right to food 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, including through agricultural development assistance, the transfer of technology, food crop rehabilitation assistance and food aid, ensuring food security, with special attention to the specific needs of women and girls, and promoting innovation, support for the development of adapted technologies, research on rural advisory services and support for access to financing services, and ensure support for the establishment of secure land tenure systems;

Calls upon all States and, if appropriate, relevant international organizations to take measures and support programmes that are aimed at combating undernutrition in mothers, in particular during pregnancy, and in children, and the irreversible effects of chronic undernutrition in early childhood, in particular from birth to the age of 2 years;

Also calls upon all States and, where appropriate, relevant international organizations to implement policies and programmes to reduce and eliminate preventable mortality and morbidity, as a result of malnutrition, of children under 5 years of age, and in this regard urges States to disseminate the technical guidance prepared by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, in collaboration with the World Health Organization,¹³ and to apply it, as appropriate, in the design, implementation, evaluation and monitoring of laws, policies, programmes, budgets and mechanisms for remedy and redress aimed at eliminating preventable mortality and morbidity of children under 5 years of age;

¹³A/HRC/27/31; see also Human Rights Council resolution 33/11 (see Official Records of the General Assembly, Seventy-first Session, Supplement No. 53A and corrigendum (A/71/53/Add.1 and A/71/53/Add.1/Corr.1), chap. II).

Encourages all States to take steps, with a view to progressively achieving the full realization of the right to food, including steps to promote the conditions for everyone to be free from hunger and, as soon as possible, to enjoy fully the right to food, and to create and adopt national plans to combat hunger;

Recognizes the advances made through South-South cooperation in developing countries and regions in connection with food security and the development of agricultural production for the full realization of the right to food;

Stresses that improving access to productive resources and public investment in rural development 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 droughts and to tackle water scarcity;

Recognizes the critical contribution made by the fisheries sector to the realization of the right to food and to food security and the contribution of small-scale fishers to the local food security of coastal communities;

Also recognizes that 70 per cent of hungry people live in rural areas, where nearly half a billion family farmers are located, and that these people are especially vulnerable to food insecurity, given the increasing cost of inputs and the fall in farm incomes; that access to land, water, seeds and other natural resources is an increasing challenge for poor producers; that sustainable and gender-sensitive agricultural policies are important tools for promoting land and agrarian reform, rural credit and insurance, technical assistance and other associated measures to achieve food security and rural development; and that support by States for small farmers, fishing communities and local enterprises, including through the facilitation of access for their products to national and international markets and empowerment of small producers, particularly women, in value chains, is a key element for food security and the provision of the right to food;

Stresses the importance of fighting hunger in rural areas, including through national efforts supported by international partnerships to stop desertification and land degradation and through investments and public policies that are specifically appropriate to the risk of drylands, and in this regard calls for the full implementation of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in Those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, Particularly in Africa;¹⁴

¹⁴United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 1954, No. 33480.

Urges States that have not yet done so to favourably consider becoming parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity¹⁵ and to consider becoming parties to the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture¹⁶ as a matter of priority;

¹⁵Ibid., vol. 1760, No. 30619.

¹⁶Ibid., vol. 2400, No. 43345.

Recognizes the important role of indigenous peoples and their traditional knowledge and seed supply systems, as well the important role of new technologies, in the conservation of biodiversity and in aiming to ensure food security and improved nutrition;

Recalls the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,¹⁷ acknowledges that many indigenous organizations and representatives of indigenous peoples have expressed in different forums their deep concerns over the obstacles and challenges they face in achieving the full enjoyment of the right to food, and calls upon States to take special actions to combat the root causes of the disproportionately high level of hunger and malnutrition among indigenous peoples and the continuous discrimination against them;

¹⁷Resolution 61/295, annex.

Welcomes the outcome document of the high-level plenary meeting of the General Assembly known as the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples, held on 22 and 23 September 2014,¹⁸ and the commitment to developing, in conjunction with the indigenous peoples concerned and where appropriate, policies, programmes and resources to support indigenous peoples’ occupations, traditional subsistence activities, economies, livelihoods, food security and nutrition;

¹⁸Resolution 69/2.

Notes the need to further examine various concepts, such as “food sovereignty”, and their relation to food security and the right to food, bearing in mind the need to avoid any negative impact on the enjoyment of the right to food for all people at all times;

Requests all States and private actors, as well as international organizations, within their respective mandates, to take fully into account the need to promote the effective realization of the right to food for all;

Recognizes the need to strengthen national commitment, as well as international assistance, upon the request of and in cooperation with the affected countries, towards the full realization and protection of the right to food, and in particular to develop national protection mechanisms for people forced to leave their homes and land because of hunger or humanitarian emergencies affecting their enjoyment of the right to food;

Takes note with appreciation of the growing movement, in different regions of the world, towards the adoption of framework laws, national strategies and measures in support of the full realization of the right to food for all;

Stresses the need to make efforts to mobilize and optimize the allocation and utilization of technical and financial resources from all sources, including external debt relief for developing countries, and to reinforce national actions to implement sustainable food security policies;

Calls for a successful, development-oriented outcome of the trade negotiations of the World Trade Organization, in particular on the remaining issues of the Doha Development Round, as a contribution to the creation of international conditions permitting the full realization of the right to food;

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

Recalls the importance of the New York Declaration on Action against Hunger and Poverty, and recommends the continuation of efforts aimed at identifying additional sources of financing for the fight against hunger and poverty, as well as non-communicable diseases;

Recognizes that the promises made at the World Food Summit in 1996 to halve the number of persons who are undernourished are not being fulfilled, while recognizing the efforts of Member States in this regard, and once again invites all international financial and development institutions, as well as the relevant United Nations agencies and funds, to give priority to and provide the funding necessary to realize the right to food, as set out in the Rome Declaration on World Food Security, and to achieve the aims of Goal 2 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development4 and other food and nutrition-related targets;

Reaffirms that integrating food and nutritional support, with the goal that all people at all times will have access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life, is part of a comprehensive effort to improve public health, alongside the response to the spread of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other communicable diseases;

Urges States to give priority in their development strategies and expenditures to the realization of the right to food;

Stresses the importance of international cooperation and development assistance as an effective contribution to the expansion and improvement of agriculture and its environmental sustainability, food production, breeding projects on diversity of crops and livestock and institutional innovations such as community seed banks, farmer field schools and seed fairs, and to the provision of humanitarian food assistance in activities related to emergency situations for the realization of the right to food and the achievement of sustainable food security, while recognizing that each country has the primary responsibility for ensuring the implementation of national programmes and strategies in this regard;

Also stresses that States parties to the World Trade Organization Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights should consider implementing that agreement in a manner that is supportive of food security, while being mindful of the obligation of Member States to promote and protect the right to food;

Calls upon Member States, the United Nations system and other relevant stakeholders to support national efforts aimed at responding rapidly to the food crises currently occurring across different regions, and expresses its deep concern that funding shortfalls are forcing the World Food Programme to cut operations across different regions, including Southern Africa;

Calls upon States to heed the urgent United Nations humanitarian appeal to assist countries facing drought, starvation and famine with emergency aid and urgent funding, and underlines that, if no immediate response is received, an estimated 20 million people, most of whom are women and children, risk losing their lives;

Invites all relevant international organizations, including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, to continue to promote policies and projects that have a positive impact on the right to food, to ensure that partners respect the right to food in the implementation of common projects, to support strategies of Member States aimed at the fulfilment of the right to food and to avoid any actions that could have a negative impact on its realization;

Takes note with appreciation of the interim report of the Special Rapporteur,¹⁹ which contextualizes the dire situation of severe food insecurity in several countries currently most affected by internal and international conflict and discusses the existing regulatory architecture of human rights law and international humanitarian law;

¹⁹A/72/188.

Recognizes the importance of giving due consideration to the adverse impact of climate change and to the full realization of the right to food, takes note of the Paris Agreement, adopted at the twenty-first session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, held in Paris from 30 November to 13 December 2015,²⁰ and welcomes the holding of the twenty-second session of the Conference of the Parties in Marrakech, Morocco, from 7 to 18 November 2016;

²⁰FCCC/CP/2015/10/Add.1, decision 1/CP.21, annex.

Also recognizes the impact of climate change and of the El Niño phenomenon on agricultural production and food security around the world and the importance of designing and implementing actions to reduce its effects, in particular on vulnerable populations, such as rural women, bearing in mind the role that they play in supporting their households and communities in achieving food and nutrition security, generating income and improving rural livelihoods and overall well-being;

Reiterates its support for the realization of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur, and 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 its effective fulfilment;

Welcomes the work already done by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in promoting the right to adequate food, in particular its general comment No. 12 (1999) on the right to adequate food (article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights),²¹ in which the Committee affirmed, inter alia, that the right to adequate food is indivisibly linked to the inherent dignity of the human person, indispensable for the fulfilment of other human rights enshrined in the International Bill of Human Rights and inseparable from social justice, requiring the adoption of appropriate economic, environmental and social policies, at both the national and the international levels, oriented to the eradication of poverty and the fulfilment of all human rights for all;

²¹See Official Records of the Economic and Social Council, 2000, Supplement No. 2 and corrigendum (E/2000/22 and E/2000/22/Corr.1), annex V.

Recalls general comment No. 15 (2002) of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights on the right to water (articles 11 and 12 of the Covenant),²² in which the Committee noted, inter alia, the importance of ensuring sustainable access to water resources for human consumption and agriculture in realization of the right to adequate food;

²²Ibid., 2003, Supplement No. 2 (E/2003/22), annex IV.

Reaffirms that the Voluntary Guidelines to Support the Progressive Realization of the Right to Adequate Food in the Context of National Food Security, adopted by the Council of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in November 2004,7 represent a useful tool to promote the realization of the right to food for all, contribute to the achievement of food security and thus provide an additional instrument in the attainment of internationally agreed development goals and to support national Governments in the implementation of food security and nutrition policies, programmes and legal frameworks;

Calls upon all Governments to cooperate with and assist the Special Rapporteur in her task, to supply all necessary information requested by her and to give serious consideration to responding favourably to the requests of the Special Rapporteur to visit their countries to enable her to fulfil her mandate more effectively;

Requests the Special Rapporteur to submit to the General Assembly at its seventy-third session an interim report on the implementation of the present resolution and to continue her work, including by examining the emerging issues with regard to the realization of the right to food that are within her mandate;

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

Decides to continue the consideration of the question at its seventy-third session under the item entitled “Promotion and protection of human rights”.

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

What else is in this group?

What subjects does this mandate have?

What’s in this document?

Table of contents