One billion people go hungry – Who controls governance of World Food System?
Heidelberg, 12/10/09 - Failure by national governments and international institutions to ensure the right to food has led to rising numbers of malnourished and starving people, as documented in the Right to Food and Nutrition Watch 2009. The report which is being launched this week on the occasion of World Food Day in twelve countries worldwide, is a common endeavor of a Consortium of human rights organizations, social movements and development agencies, among them Brot für die Welt, the Interchurch Organization for Development Cooperation (ICCO) and FIAN International.
The 2009 report focuses on the question of “Who controls the governance of the world food system?” – a burning issue in light of the current World Food Crisis. For the first time in history, the number of undernourished people in the world has surpassed the tragic figure of 1 billion. The gap between promises and reality is increasing as the international community and national governments are painfully far from realising the World Food Summit targets to halve the proportion of chronically hungry people in the world by the year 2015. It is clear that the global governance of the World Food System needs to be remodelled in order to effectively overcome hunger and its causes.
As an evidence-providing monitoring tool, the WATCH pursues two aims: to put public pressure on policy makers at the national and international level to take the human right to food serious, and to provide a systematic compilation of best practices for the realisation of the right to food, while documenting where violations take place.
In the thematic part of the WATCH, contributors such as UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier De Schutter, focus on Governing World Food Security and necessary changes to related international bodies, as well as on other burning right-to-food issues of the present. The national and regional part of the WATCH highlights how the right to food and nutrition are connected to agro-fuel production, poverty or the right to land in countries such as Brazil, India or Kenya. From Benin to Zambia, the WATCH presents reports on the state of the implementation of the right to food and nutrition as well as initiatives such as the Zero Hunger Program in Nicaragua.
As an annual publication, the WATCH seeks to provide a platform for human rights experts, civil society activists, social movements, media and scholars to exchange experiences, to learn from each other how best to carry out right-to-food work in different settings, and to advocate and lobby for this right.
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The Consortium for the WATCH 2009 is composed by Brot für die Welt, the Interchurch Organization for Development Cooperation (ICCO) and FIAN International as publishers; and World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA), People’s Health Movement (PHM), Habitat International Coalition (HIC), World Organisation against Torture (OMCT), DanChurchAid, Rights and Democracy, Plataforma Interamericana de Derechos Humanos Democracia y Desarrollo (PIDHDD), and African Right to Food Network as partners.
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Public presentations of the WATCH will be held in the week from 12-16 October 2009 in the following 12 cities and countries: Asunción, Paraguay; Berlin, Germany; Brasilia, Brazil; Copenhagen, Denmark; Davengere, India; Geneva, Switzerland; Oslo, Norway; Paris, France; Rome, Italy; Stockholm, Sweden; Utrecht, Holland; Vienna, Austria