Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 19 December 2006  [on the report of the Third Committee (A/61/443/Add.2 and Corr.1)]  61/163. The right to food        The General Assembly,    Recalling all its previous resolutions on the issue of the right to food, in  particular resolution 60/165 of 16 December 2005, as well as all resolutions of the  Commission on Human Rights in this regard,    Recalling also the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1 which provides  that everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for her or his health and  well-being, including food, the Universal Declaration on the Eradication of Hunger  and Malnutrition2 and the United Nations Millennium Declaration,3    Recalling further the provisions of the International Covenant on Economic,  Social and Cultural Rights,4 in which the fundamental right of every person to be  free from hunger is recognized,    Bearing in mind the Rome Declaration on World Food Security and the World  Food Summit Plan of Action5 and the Declaration of the World Food Summit: five  years later, adopted in Rome on 13 June 2002,6    Reaffirming the concrete recommendations contained in the Voluntary  Guidelines to Support the Progressive Realization of the Right to Adequate Food in  the Context of National Food Security, adopted by the Council of the Food and  Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in November 2004,7  _______________  1 Resolution 217 A (III).  2 Report of the World Food Conference, Rome, 5–16 November 1974 (United Nations publication, Sales  No. E.75.II.A.3), chap. I.  3 See resolution 55/2.  4 See resolution 2200 A (XXI), annex.  5  Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Report of the World Food Summit,   13–17 November 1996 (WFS 96/REP), part one, appendix.  6 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Report of the World Food Summit: five years  later, 10–13 June 2002, part one, appendix; see also A/57/499, annex.  7 Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Report of the Council of the Food and  Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, One Hundred and Twenty-seventh Session, Rome,   22–27 November 2004 (CL 127/REP), appendix D; see also E/CN.4/2005/131, annex.   A/RES/61/163  2    Reaffirming  also  that  all  human  rights  are  universal,  indivisible,  interdependent and interrelated,    Reaffirming further 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 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,    Noting that the global environment continues to suffer degradation, causing a  negative impact on the realization of the right to food, in particular in developing  countries,    Expressing its deep concern at the number and scale of natural disasters,  diseases and pests and their increasing impact in recent years, which have resulted  in massive loss of life and livelihood and threatened agricultural production and  food security, in particular in developing countries,    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,    1.  Reaffirms that hunger constitutes an outrage and a violation of human  dignity and therefore requires the adoption of urgent measures at the national,  regional and international levels for its elimination;    2.  Also reaffirms the right of everyone to have access to safe and nutritious  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;    3.  Considers it intolerable that every five seconds a child under the age of 5  dies from hunger or hunger-related diseases somewhere in the world, that there are  about 854 million undernourished people in the world and that, while the prevalence  of hunger has diminished, the absolute number of undernourished people has been  increasing in recent years when, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization  of the United Nations, the planet could produce enough food to feed 12 billion  people, twice the world’s present population;   A/RES/61/163  3    4.  Expresses its concern that women and girls are disproportionately  affected by hunger, food insecurity and poverty, in part as a result of gender  inequality and discrimination, 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;    5.  Encourages all States to take action to address gender inequality and  discrimination against women, in particular where it contributes to the malnutrition  of women and girls, including measures to ensure the full and equal realization of  the right to food and ensuring that women have equal access to resources, including  income, land and water, to enable them to feed themselves and their families;    6.  Encourages the Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights Council on the  right to food to continue mainstreaming a gender perspective in the fulfilment of his  mandate, and encourages the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United  Nations and all other United Nations bodies and mechanisms addressing the right to  food and food insecurity to integrate a gender perspective into their relevant  policies, programmes and activities;    7.  Encourages all States to take steps with a view to achieving  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;    8.  Stresses that improving access to productive resources and public  investment in rural development is essential for eradicating hunger and poverty, in  particular in developing countries, including through the promotion of investments  in appropriate, small-scale irrigation and water management technologies in order to  reduce vulnerability to droughts;    9.  Stresses also the importance of fighting hunger in rural areas, including  through national efforts supported by international partnerships to stop  desertification and land degradation and through investments and public policies  that are specifically appropriate to the risk of drylands, and, in this regard, calls for  the full implementation of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification  in Those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification,  Particularly in Africa;8    10. Acknowledges that many indigenous organizations and representatives of  indigenous communities have expressed in different forums their deep concerns  over the obstacles and challenges they face for the full enjoyment of the right to  food, and calls upon States to take special actions to combat the root causes of the  disproportionately high level of hunger and malnutrition among indigenous peoples  and the continuous discrimination against them;    11. Requests all States and private actors, as well as international  organizations within their respective mandates, to take fully into account the need to  promote the effective realization of the right to food for all, including in the ongoing  negotiations in different fields;    12. Stresses the need to make efforts to mobilize and optimize the allocation  and utilization of technical and financial resources from all sources, including  external debt relief for developing countries, and to reinforce national actions to  implement sustainable food security policies;  _______________  8 United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 1954, No. 33480.   A/RES/61/163  4    13. Recognizes the need for a successful conclusion of the Doha  Development Round negotiations of the World Trade Organization as a contribution  for creating international conditions that permit the realization of the right to food;    14. Recalls the importance of the New York Declaration on Action against  Hunger and Poverty, and recommends the continuation of efforts aimed at  identifying additional sources of financing for the fight against hunger and poverty;    15. Recognizes that the promises made at the World Food Summit in 1996 to  halve the number of persons who are undernourished are not being fulfilled, and  invites once again all international financial and development institutions, as well as  the relevant United Nations agencies and funds, to give priority to and provide the  necessary funding to realize the aim of halving by 2015 the proportion of people  who suffer from hunger, as well as the right to food as set out in the Rome  Declaration on World Food Security5 and the United Nations Millennium  Declaration;3    16. Reaffirms that integrating food and nutritional support, with the goal that  all people at all times will have access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet  their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life, is part of a  comprehensive response to the spread of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other  communicable diseases;    17. Urges States to give adequate priority in their development strategies and  expenditures to the realization of the right to food;    18. Stresses the importance of international development cooperation and  assistance, in particular in activities related to disaster risk reduction and in  emergency situations such as natural and man-made disasters, diseases and pests,  for the realization of the right to food and the achievement of sustainable food  security, while recognizing that each country has the primary responsibility for  ensuring the implementation of national programmes and strategies in this regard;    19. Calls upon Member States, the United Nations system and other relevant  stakeholders to support national efforts aimed at responding rapidly to the food  crises currently occurring across Africa;    20. Invites all relevant international organizations, including the World Bank  and the International Monetary Fund, to promote policies and projects that have a  positive impact on the right to food, to ensure that partners respect the right to food  in the implementation of common projects, to support strategies of Member States  aimed at the fulfilment of the right to food and to avoid any actions that could have  a negative impact on the realization of the right to food;    21. Takes note of the interim report of the Special Rapporteur on the right to  food,9 and also takes note of his valuable work in the promotion of the right to food;    22. Supports the realization of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur as  extended by the Human Rights Council in its decision 1/102 of 30 June 2006;10    23. Requests  the  Secretary-General  and  the  United  Nations  High  Commissioner for Human Rights to provide all the necessary human and financial  resources for the effective fulfilment of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur;  _______________  9 See A/61/306.  10 See Official Records of the General Assembly, Sixty-first Session, Supplement No. 53 (A/61/53), part  one, chap. II, sect. B.   A/RES/61/163  5    24. Welcomes the work already done by the Committee on Economic, Social  and Cultural Rights in promoting the right to adequate food, in particular its General  Comment No. 12 (1999) on the right to adequate food (article 11 of the International  Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), 11 in which the Committee  affirmed, inter alia, that the right to adequate food is indivisibly linked to the  inherent dignity of the human person and is indispensable for the fulfilment of other  human rights enshrined in the International Bill of Human Rights, and is also  inseparable from social justice, requiring the adoption of appropriate economic,  environmental and social policies, at both the national and the international levels,  oriented to the eradication of poverty and the fulfilment of all human rights for all;    25. Recalls General Comment No. 15 (2002) of the Committee on the right  to water (articles 11 and 12 of the Covenant),12 in which the Committee noted, inter  alia, the importance of ensuring sustainable water resources for human consumption  and agriculture in realization of the right to adequate food;    26. Reaffirms that the Voluntary Guidelines to Support the Progressive  Realization of the Right to Adequate Food in the Context of National Food Security,  adopted by the Council of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United  Nations in November 2004,7 represent a practical tool to promote the realization of  the right to food for all, contribute to the achievement of food security and thus  provide an additional instrument in the attainment of internationally agreed  development goals, including those contained in the Millennium Declaration;     27. Welcomes the continued cooperation of the High Commissioner, the  Committee and the Special Rapporteur, and encourages them to continue their  cooperation in this regard;    28. Calls upon all Governments to cooperate with and assist the Special  Rapporteur in his task, to supply all necessary information requested by him and to  give serious consideration to responding favourably to the requests of the Special  Rapporteur to visit their countries to enable him to fulfil his mandate more  effectively;    29. Requests the Special Rapporteur to submit an interim report to the  General Assembly at its sixty-second session on the implementation of the present  resolution;    30. Invites Governments, relevant United Nations agencies, funds and  programmes, treaty bodies and civil society actors, including non-governmental  organizations, as well as the private sector, to cooperate fully with the Special  Rapporteur in the fulfilment of his mandate, inter alia, through the submission of  comments and suggestions on ways and means of realizing the right to food;    31. Decides to continue the consideration of the question at its sixty-second  session under the item entitled “Promotion and protection of human rights”.    81st plenary meeting  19 December 2006  _______________  11 See Official Records of the Economic and Social Council, 2000, Supplement No. 2 and corrigendum  (E/2000/22 and Corr.1), annex V.  12 Ibid., 2003, Supplement No. 2 (E/2003/22), annex IV.