On the Road to Sustainable Peace and Human Security
Key Determinants in Implementing the Right to Food
“Food security is a precondition for human security, sustainable peace and social stability, no matter where one is.”
The right to food and the foundations of peace
Lasting peace and human security, Sfeir-Younis argues, depend on the effective realization of the right to food. The paper identifies the key determinants for implementing this right and links food security to the foundations of sustainable peace.
The text was presented at the international seminar “The Right to Food: A Challenge for Peace and Development in the 21st Century,” organised by the International Jacques Maritain Institute in Rome from 17 to 19 September 2001, and published in the seminar proceedings in 2002. It is re-edited and presented by the Zambuling Institute for Human Transformation.
Food security in figures
- 800 millionpeople do not have the minimum nutritional requirements, in a world superabundant in food production.
- 75%of the world’s poor live in rural areas, the source of our food supplies.
- $327 billionin OECD subsidies to agriculture in the year 2000, almost $900 million a day.
- 60%Per capita food prices in 1997 were just 60 per cent of their level in 1959.
The Rule of Fourteen
- Human Rights and Equity
- Human Rights and Empowerment
- Human Rights and Governance
- Human Rights and Institutions
- Human Rights and Affordability
- Human Rights and Participation (Representation)
- Human Rights and the Sustainability of Development Efforts
- Human Rights and Targeting the Poor
- Human Rights and Existing Value-Systems
- Human Rights and Social Contracts
- Human Rights and Styles of Development
- Human Rights: Individual and Collective Actions
- Human Rights and Our Vision of the Future
- Human Rights and Leadership
Inside the book
- Introduction
- The Foundations of Sustainable Development — the case of agriculture
- Issues on the Right to Food — general issues, the policy context and structural adjustment programs
- The World Bank Role and Assistance Programs — poverty, food security and the right to food, with examples from China, West Africa, Ecuador, Brazil, India and Turkey
- The Intellectual Journey and New Challenges — definitions, wealth creation, the public and private good nature of food, and the economics of nutrition
- Elements of a Strategy in Implementing the Right to Food — the Rule of Fourteen
- Concluding Remarks
In the author’s words
“In a world superabundant in food production, it is really hard to accept that there are around 800 million people who do not have the minimum nutritional requirements.”
“The world knows how to produce food. The real problem is to create access for those in need and the conditions for an adequate food distribution system.”
“Weak structures in other sectors may simply ruin the possibilities of attaining the right to food and food security in general.”
“Reaching the target population – i.e., the hungry – is the key acid test of successful policies.”
“Mainstreaming the right to food demands a value-system where human rights are not residuals of other values and belief systems, but rather an integral part of it.”
“This vision may need to go to the roots of what life is all about in its material and non-material dimensions.”
Download the PDF (opens in a new tab)“Without this revolution in values, human rights cannot be attained, or at best, these rights will become the residual of market transactions and economic exchanges.”