Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples Mechanism for relations with the UN Committee on World Food Security (CSM) PRESS RELEASE New Global Society Report launched on the eve of the World Food Day 2018 Rome, 12 October 2018 – The right to food is a fundamental pillar to the right to life. Yet it is also arguably the most violated human right globally. Today, hundreds of millions of children, women and men – 821 million people – remain food insecure. A new global civil society report launched today in Rome provides comprehensive data and analysis on this alarming contradiction. The report will be officially presented at the Global Thematic Event on the Right to Food Guidelines* at the 45th plenary session of the UN Committee on World Food Security next week. The world is not on track to reach the Zero Hunger Goal of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in 2030. For the third year in a row, there is a rise in world hunger. According to the latest United Nations’ report on the State of Food Security and Nutrition (SOFI 2018), the absolute number of undernourished people, i.e. those facing chronic food deprivation, has increased to nearly 821 million in 2017, from around 804 million in 2016. “We want to make politicians understand the human tragedies and structural causes behind these figures, and that they are consequences of man-made policy failures that can and must be stopped. Those failures favour large scale investments at the expenses of the impoverished and marginalized populations, such as small-scale fishers and farmers” says Christiane Louwa from the World Forum of Fisher People, Co-Coordinator of the CSM fisherfolks’ constituency, from Kenya. “ “It is impossible to attain the Zero Hunger Goal without a radical change and a totally renewed commitment of governments towards policies which promote and protect our rights, the right to food, women’s rights, peasants’ rights, indigenous peoples’ rights, workers’ rights, and all human rights of the people most at risk or affected by food insecurity and malnutrition” says Ramona Duminicioiu from La Vía Campesina, CSM Co-Coordinator of the smallholder farmers’ constituency, from Romania. “Full respect to women’s rights is a precondition for an effective fight against the causes of hunger”, says Azra Sayeed from the International Women’s Alliance and Co-Coordinator of the CSM women’s constituency, from Pakistan. “There are still governments objecting our rights. Each day they do so, they prolong the
