CFS Policy Convergence Products Database

Where appropriate and consistent with domestic law, States may assist individuals and groups of individuals to have access to legal assistance to better assert the progressive realization of the right to adequate food.

States should consider adopting a holistic and comprehensive approach to hunger and poverty reduction. Such an approach entails, inter alia, direct and immediate measures to ensure access to adequate food as part of a social safety net; investment in productive activities and projects to improve the livelihoods of the poor and hungry in a sustainable manner; the development of appropriate institutions, functioning markets, a conducive legal and regulatory framework; and access to employment, productive resources and appropriate services.

In order to achieve the progressive realization of the right to adequate food in the context of national food security, States should promote broad-based economic development that is supportive of their food security policies. States should establish policy goals and benchmarks based on the food security needs of their population.

States should assess, in consultation with key stakeholders, the economic and social situation, including the degree of food insecurity and its causes, the nutrition situation and food safety

States should promote adequate and stable supplies of safe food through a combination of domestic production, trade, storage and distribution.

States are encouraged, inter alia and in a sustainable manner, to increase productivity and to revitalize the agriculture sector including livestock, forestry and fisheries through special policies and strategies targeted at small-scale and traditional fishers and farmers in rural areas, and the creation of enabling conditions for private sector participation, with emphasis on human capacity development and the removal of constraints to agricultural production, marketing and distribution.

States should, in accordance with their national law and priorities, as well as their international commitments, improve the functioning of their markets, in particular their agricultural and food markets, in order to promote both economic growth and sustainable development, inter alia, by mobilizing domestic savings, both public and private, by developing appropriate credit policies, by generating sustainable adequate levels of national productive investment through credits in concessional terms and by increasing human capacity.

In developing these strategies, States are encouraged to consult with civil society organizations and other key stakeholders at national and regional levels, including small-scale and traditional farmers, the private sector, women and youth associations, with the aim of promoting their active participation in all aspects of agricultural and food production strategies.