Dr. Stefanie Lemke, University of Hohenheim

Gender, Nutrition and the Human Right to Adequate Food: towards an inclusive approach for sustainable rural development Dr. Stefanie Lemke, University of Hohenheim “Agriculture and Sustainable Rural Development in Times of Crisis” Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, January 25-26, 2013 Panel III: Beyond Food Security: The Concepts of Food Sovereignty and Meal Security

Participatory Gendered Approaches - Rights-Based (?) • People as actors, not recipients: • rights vs. needs; • participation vs. patronizing measures • Emphasis on micro-level: • How do people themselves reflect and analyze their situation? • What are people’s capabilities, livelihood and coping strategies? • What are underlying gender issues - impact of direct/structural violence on access to resources, livelihoods, food and nutrition security?

Right To Adequate Food • „The righttofoodistherighttohaveregular, permanent andunrestrictedaccess, eitherdirectlyorbymeansoffinancialpurchase, toquantitativelyandqualitativelyadequateandsufficientfoodcorrespondingtotheculturaltraditionsofthepeopletowhichtheconsumerbelongs, andwhichensures a physicaland mental, individual andcollective, fulfillinganddignifiedlifefreeoffear.“ (Ziegler et al., 2011:15)

Right To Adequate Food, Food Sovereignty Food sovereignty can be seen as a condition for genuine food security, and the right to adequate food as a political tool to achieve it. (Windfuhr and Jonsén, 2005) .

Right To Adequate Food • UDHR (1948), Article 25 • ICESCR (1966), Article 11 • CRC (1989), Articles 24 and 27 • World Food Summits (1996 & 2002) – Official FAO declarations, later integrating recommendations from CSOs • General Comment 12 to ICESCR (1999) • Voluntary Guidelines to support the progressive realization of the right to adequate food in the context of national food security(FAO 2005) • FAO established Right to Food Unit (2006)

Human Rights-based Approach (HRBA) to assess the missing dimension of power relations • Providesbetter understanding of the way power impacts on the production and reproductionof poverty • brings power issuesto the centre • emphasizesequity, identifiessocialexclusion, prioritizes the poorestofthepoor • emphasizesaccountability, couldprovideleverage to mobilization andcollective action demanding more accountability from governments (Source: Moser et al., 2001; FAO, 2011b )

How to integrate a rights-based approach? Voluntary Guidelines: provide voluntary reporting guidance to State Parties, and to Civil Society Screen State Action: specifically advises civil society how to participate in work of Human Rights Treaty Bodies

Voluntary Guidelines (FAO 2005) • Education andawarenessraising • National financialresources • Support for vulnerable groups • Safetynets • International foodaid • Natural and human-made disasters • Monitoring, indicatorsandbenchmarks • National human rightsinstitutions • International dimension Themes • Democracy, good governance, human rights and the rule of law • Economic development policies • Strategies • Market systems • Institutions • Stakeholders • Legal framework • Access to resources and assets • Food safety and consumer protection • Nutrition

Screen state action against hunger!FIAN (2007) • Questions provided for each guideline, e.g. Guideline 8 – Access to resources and assets 2. Do women have the right to inherit and possess land and other property? Do women or any rural group suffer discrimination in the entitlement to natural resources rights, to productive resources rights, to labor rights? Do customs/customary laws exist that denies women’s equal entitlement to natural and productive resources rights?

Screen state action against hunger!FIAN (2007) Guideline 10 – Nutrition 2. Do State policies include programs or projects aimed at confronting the different nutritional problems of the various social groups? Example: Malnutrition of girls and women, as a consequence of the unequal food distribution within the family, where gender discrimination is the cause of malnutrition. In this case, the institution should offer educational programs on consumption habits with a gender perspective. (p40)

Gender, Nutrition, and the Human Right toAdequate Food: towards an inclusiveframework An academic-NGO collaborative research and advocacy project University of Hohenheim, Dept. Gender & Nutrition FIAN, GIFA/IBFAN

I. Two “Disconnects” that frustrate women’s right to adequate food and nutrition • Structural isolation of women's rights from the right to adequate food within key international human rights treaties • International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR, 1966) • Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW, 1979) • Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC, 1989) • Isolation of nutrition from the right to adequate food • inordinate focus on food stuffs and their production • over-medicalization of nutrition

II. Violence against women and girls • Recognize and address that, ranging in form from direct/aggressive to structural, violence is an under-examined barrier to women’s right to adequate food and to their participationas autonomous and participatory members of efforts to address hunger and food insecurity Structural violence is a process aligned with social injustice that “is built into [social] structure and shows up as unequal power and consequently as unequal life chances.“ (Galtung 1969: 171)

III. Intertwined subjectivities of maternal-child health and nutrition • Address malnutrition a) across life cycles as a life long human rights deprivation – not only as function of nutrition; or in pregnancy and infancy; b) as inter-generational causality of hunger, poverty, growth failure. • Support local and sustainable interventions, e.g., breastfeeding, appropriate complementary feeding, reproductive rights & health • Avoid nutrition interventions that: a) have built-in conflicts of interests, b) prioritize short term, medicalized and locally non-sustainable solutions, c) threaten women’s and community’s right to dignity and self-determination.

IV. Food systems, gender & participation • Emphasize more localized and sustainable food and nutrition systems with agro-ecology approaches supporting smaller-scaled farmers. • Democratize food governance at diverse scales. • Support local knowledge (cf.: IAASTD; FAO Voluntary Guidelines; food sovereignty movements). • Mainstream women in all above, recognizing and addressing the barriers and challenges they face.

V. Introducing an expanded conceptual framework for the Right to Adequate Food and Nutrition • Rights-based approach potent tool to promote a more precise diagnosis of the root causes of inequities • Integrating gender & women‘s rights, nutrition and food sovereignty • Participatory, social movement-led reconceptualization to avoid artificial fragmentation of conceptual, legal and institutional frameworks and associated ineffective policies against hunger and malnutrition

Progress and Future Plans • Monitoring, research • Advocacy with governments through UN bodies (HCHR, FAO, WHO, CFS, CEDAW, CRC, UNICEF, intl. CSOs, Special Rapporteur on RtF) • Capacity building • Networking, joint campaigning • Dissemination of information & publishing both in academic and non-academic circles; book Routledge

Conclusion & Outlook • Despite laws aimed at implementing the Right to Adequate Food impact often minor • Call from countries of the global South: States and CSOs should support mobilization and self-organization of marginalized groups, whose social movements have a key role to play in achieving sustainable livelihoods, food and nutrition security (Conference Policies against Hunger, Working group 2: Access to Land; Berlin, Nov 2011)

“Our secret weapon against hunger: gender equality and women’s empowerment” Olivier de Schutter, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food, 2012

FAO Toolbox – Methods to Monitor the Human Right to Adequate Food

Dr. Stefanie Lemke, University of Hohenheim