World Food Policy Volume 2, Number 1, Spring 2015 | Page 120

Advancing Health Promoting Food Systems

In 1999, the UN Committee
on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights, the body of independent
experts
monitoring
States’
compliance with the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights (ICESCR), adopted
General Comment No. 12 on the
right to food which states: “The right
to adequate food is realized when
every man, woman and child, alone
or in community with others, has
physical and economic access at all
times to adequate food or means for
its procurement”.
In 2000, the mandate of the Special
Rapporteur on the right to food
was established by the Commission
on Human Rights (Resolution
2000/10, April 17, 2000). That office
is responsible for monitoring State
actions on their obligations defined
by the United Nations Committee
on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights. One of the four obligations
states that: “the State must proactively engage in activities intended
to strengthen people's access to and
utilization of resources and means
to ensure their livelihood, including
food security”.

agriculture in Buenos Aires, Argentina,
April 2012), http://un-foodsecurity.org/
node/1316
http://www.iisd.org/tkn/pdf/food_
security_policies_latin_america.pdf.
4.2.2 - Pursue health-sensitive development
approaches

Both the WHO and FAO
have recently made more direct links
between health status and security
and development in their responses to
the Post-2015 Development Agenda
process for deciding what steps to take
regarding the Millennium Development
Goals. According to the WHO (2012):
“Health is central to development: it is a
precondition for, as well as an indicator
and an outcome of progress in sustainable
development”.
In
addition,
The
Vienna
Declaration
on
Nutrition
and
Noncommunicable Diseases in the
Context of Health 2020, WHO Regional
Office of Europe 2013, provides a further
platform linking national development
and health promoting food systems.
This body has argued that investing in
diet-related prevention and control will
support a country’s human capital and its
economy (WHO Ministerial Conference

As one way of advancing the right 2013).
to nutritious food, a number of countries
More recently, participants in the
have included food sovereignty in their March 2014 High-level Roundtable on
constitutions or have developed charters. “Food and Nutrition Security through
In 2012, at a UN sponsored conference, Sustainable Agriculture and Food
Latin American and Caribbean countries Systems in the post-2015 Agenda” issued
renewed their commitment to the a communique entitled “SHIFT: Food and
Hunger 2025 Initiative, an effort that Nutrition Security through Sustainable
aims to ensure that no child, man, or Agriculture and Food Systems in the
woman in the region endures hunger Post-2015 Agenda”. SHIFT refers to five
(United Nations conference on food and elements: Small-scale food producers
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