A/RES/58/186
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,
Reaffirming that a peaceful, stable and enabling political, social and economic
environment, at both the national and the international levels, is the essential
foundation that will enable States to give adequate priority to food security and
poverty eradication,
Reiterating, as in the Rome Declaration 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 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,
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 around 840 million undernourished
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people in the world, that every seven seconds a child under the age of ten dies,
directly or indirectly, of hunger somewhere in the world and that more than 2 billion
people worldwide suffer from “hidden hunger” or micronutrient malnutrition;
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 suffer from malnutrition as men;
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;
Also encourages all States to take action to address discrimination
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against women, particularly where it contributes to the malnutrition of women and
girls, including measures to ensure the realization of the right to food, and ensuring
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