State of the Right to Food and Nutrition Report 2019
Telling the Stories and Struggles of the People Behind the Numbers
This pilot-report aims to move beyond numbers, and provide an insight into how the right to food and nutrition has advanced and evolved over the past year.
Mainstream narratives about hunger are focused on statistics and numbers. For example; the 2019 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) estimates that a staggering 820 million people globally are affected by hunger and malnutrition, while 2 billion are food insecure. These numbers are important, but they cannot tell the full story. A sole focus on data contributes to obscuring the root causes of food insecurity, and neglecting the role of state accountability.
To fill this gap, the Global Network for the Right to Food and Nutrition (GNRtFN), with the support of its secretariat FIAN International, is releasing the first State of the Right to Food and Nutrition Report. This pilot-report aims to move beyond the numbers, and provide an insight into how the right to food and nutrition has advanced and evolved over the past year.
This approach is not entirely new. Every year, civil society organizations (CSOs) critically assess the SOFI report for a lack of human rights or structural analysis (see 2018 and 2019 critiques). However, every year, their assessment is mostly ignored. According to Emily Mattheisen from FIAN International, this lack of attention to human rights is not a coincidence. “Human Rights accountability does not fit with the dominant narrative of causes of food insecurity and the related profit-based corporate solutions.” Emily says.
While shifting the narrative to include the voice of people is complex, the report seeks to share several experiences from the North and South, where communities and CSOs have successfully organized against regressive state’s actions and advanced various policies to uphold their right to food and nutrition.
Matching the theme of its sister publication, the 2019’s Right to Food and Nutrition Watch, the experiences gathered in this report make an emphasis on the impact of regressive policies on the women’s right to food and nutrition,
The State of the Right to Food and Nutrition Report is only a snapshot of how people have advocated for the right to food and nutrition over the past year. By telling more stories and struggles of the people behind the numbers, the GNRtFN strives to fill the gap left by statistics.
- You can read the full report (English only) here
- The executive summary is available here
For further inquiries about contact: mattheisen(at)fian.org
For more information about the Global Network on the Right to Food and Nutrition contact: secretariat@righttofoodandnutrition.org