The United Nations Non-Governmental Liaison Service (UN-NGLS) is an inter-agency programme of the United Nations mandated to promote and develop constructive relations between the United Nations and civil society organizations.
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Food Security
The skyrocketing rise in food prices worldwide represents a global development crisis of unprecedented scale. It undermines one of the most fundamental human rights of all - the right to be free from hunger - for perhaps an additional 100 million people to the more than 850 million people who were already going hungry before the emergency erupted. This crisis threatens to wipe out all progress achieved in meeting the Millennium Development Goal "to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger." It has thrown into question the prevailing development and global economic integration models of the past 20 or 30 years, which among other issues have systematically undermined small-scale agricultural production in developing countries - while presenting a new type of global security threat.
Global Mobilization to Address the Food Crisis
This Online Focus page provides useful links and regular updates on the global mobilization by the United Nations and civil society to address the immediate as well as structural root causes of the current crisis.
Fertile Ground – How governments and donors can halve hunger by supporting small farmers
“Poor people do not go hungry because there is not enough to eat; they go hungry because they are not able to produce enough and cannot afford to buy food.”
In the lead up to the MDG+10 Review Summit, ActionAid released a new report entitled Fertile Ground, which emphasizes that “empowering local farmers to produce more food for local markets is the bedrock of global food security” and thus can effectively contribute to halving world hunger (MDG1).
The Road towards a Declaration on Peasants’ Rights in the framework of the Right to Food
On 16 March, the Human Rights Council Advisory Committee presented a "Preliminary study on discrimination in the context of the right to food" to the Human Rights Council. The study presents examples of discrimination in the context of the right to food. It also makes explicit reference to the Declaration of the Rights of Peasants, adopted by La Via Campesina in June 2008.
- UNCTAD launches Technology and Innovation Report 2010
- IFAD - The multidimensional poverty assessment tool (MPAT): A new framework for measuring rural poverty
- UNIDO/FAO/IFAD: Agro-industries for Development
Featured UN Reports
- The High Food Price Challenge: A Review of Responses to Combat Hunger
- FAO: Call to Civil Society to Participate in the Process towards the Adoption of Voluntary Guidelines for Land and Natural Resource Tenure
- ICRW’s position paper: Women Help Solve Hunger: Why Is the World Still Waiting?