A/RES/59/202
Reiterating, as in the Rome Declaration on World Food Security and the
Declaration of the World Food Summit: five years later, that food should not be
used as an instrument of political or economic pressure, and reaffirming in this
regard the importance of international cooperation and solidarity, as well as the
necessity of refraining from unilateral measures that are not in accordance with
international law and the Charter of the United Nations and that endanger food
security,
Convinced that each State must adopt a strategy consistent with its resources
and capacities to achieve its individual goals in implementing the recommendations
contained in the Rome Declaration on World Food Security and the World Food
Summit Plan of Action and, at the same time, cooperate regionally and
internationally in order to organize collective solutions to global issues of food
security in a world of increasingly interlinked institutions, societies and economies
where coordinated efforts and shared responsibilities are essential,
Recognizing that the problems of hunger and food insecurity have global
dimensions and that they are likely to persist and even to increase dramatically in
some regions unless urgent, determined and concerted action is taken, given the
anticipated increase in the world’s population and the stress on natural resources,
Expressing its concern about the adverse impact on the realization of the right
to food caused by many humanitarian emergencies, including plagues and natural
disasters,
Stressing the importance of reversing the continuing decline of official
development assistance devoted to agriculture, both in real terms and as a share of
total official development assistance,
Reaffirms that hunger constitutes an outrage and a violation of human
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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 and nutritious
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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 their
physical and mental capacities;
Considers it intolerable that there are about 842 million undernourished
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people in the world, that every five seconds a child under the age of 5 dies from
hunger-related diseases and that more than 2 billion people throughout the world
suffer from “hidden hunger” or micronutrient malnutrition when, according to the
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the world produces more
than enough food to feed its entire population;
Expresses its concern that women are disproportionately affected by
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hunger, food insecurity and poverty, in part as a result of gender inequality, 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 take steps with a view to achieving
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progressively 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;
Requests all States and private actors, as well as international
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organizations within their respective mandates, to take fully into account the need to
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