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Introduction
The problem of
hunger is not limited to Malawi. The United Nations Food and
Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports that more than 800 million
people around the world suffer from hunger and that the millennium
target of reducing that number by half will not be met without
stronger commitments and an accelerated pace. In its annual report,
The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2005, the FAO cites
“good governance” as a key factor in countries where food insecurity
has been significantly reduced. The FAO pointed to specific elements
of democratic governance necessary for the reduction of hunger,
including respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.1
With regards to human rights, the FAO highlights the recent
adoption by its members of Voluntary Guidelines to support the
progressive realization of the right to adequate food in the context
of national food security.2
The Guidelines provide a practical tool to assist States to both
understand and fulfill their obligations. The process to draft and
adopt the Guidelines was the first time that any of the economic,
social and cultural rights have been negotiated by governments in a
multilateral forum outside of the UN’s human rights system. Their
adoption in September 2004 illustrates the value that States place
on human rights as a basic construct of development.
This
report and the fact-finding mission on which it is based represent
an effort to apply the FAO Guidelines in a practical experience and
in doing so, to illustrate the distinct advantages a human rights
framework provides for policy and program development. Rights &
Democracy and FIAN International hope that the information gathered
in the course of our mission and presented in this report will
encourage greater support for the FAO Guidelines and generate new
approaches to ending hunger in Malawi as well as in other countries
and regions of the world.
The Mission
The
international fact-finding mission (April 17-23, 2006) was
undertaken as a collaborative initiative of Rights & Democracy
and FIAN International. It responded to a request from the National
Taskforce on the Human Right to Food, a network of Malawian civil
society organizations coordinated by Church and Society, a project
of the CCAP Blantyre Synod. The objective of the mission was to take
stock of the hunger crisis from a human rights perspective and to
provide related recommendations as a contribution towards
sustainable food security and food self-sufficiency in Malawi. It
was also hoped, that the exposure provided by an international
delegation of human rights experts would be an impetus to the civil
society campaign for a “Human Right to Food Bill” to be passed in
Malawi’s parliament. The mission delegation was comprised of six
individuals from Canada, Germany, Ghana, Malawi and Zambia. Their
biographical notes are included in Annex 1 of this report.
Footnotes:
- The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2005, UN FAO, Rome,
Italy, 2005, p.11.
- The FAO Guidelines can be downloaded at
www.fao.org/righttofood.
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