Food sovereignty and right to food: the case of Uganda Food sovereignty and the Universal Bill of Human

Rights The Social and Economic Rights Action Centre (SERAC) and the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR) v. Nigeria. The decision concerned the despoliation of the environment and other violations committed by the Nigerian government and several oil companies against the Ogoni peoples of the Niger Delta region. when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. (FAO,
The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2009: Economic crises impacts and lessons learned (2009), p.8)

In the current macroeconomic and geopolitical order, food sovereignty tackles an additional dimension of international and national policy- making governing access and control over food. It also addresses the common responsibility in realising human rights as a whole and the human right to adequate food in particular. Food sovereignty clearly relates to the enjoyment of this right through its implications and potential strategies regarding food and nutrition policies in general and rural development, trade, food aid and consumer protection in particular. Furthermore, food sovereignty addresses territory sharing, agricultural production models, access to and control of resources, traditional techniques and knowledge, as well as migrants and conflicts. International Forum on Food Sovereignty, Nylni 2007, in Slingu, a village in the Malian country side. The debates between pastoralists, peasants, fishers, consumer protection groups and NGOs resulted in a strong declaration on the concept of food sovereignty and on the demands towards the international community linked to it The definition of food sovereignty proclaimed in Nylni closely resembles existing international human rights standards. The Nylni Declaration on Food Sovereignty Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. It puts those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations. It defends the interests and inclusion of the next generation. It offers a strategy to resist and dismantle the current corporate trade and food regime, and directions for food, farming, pastoral and fisheries systems determined by local producers. Food sovereignty prioritises local and national economies and markets and empowers peasant and family farmer-driven agriculture, artisanal fishing, pastoralist-led grazing, and food production, distribution and consumption based on environmental, social and economic sustainability. Food sovereignty promotes transparent trade that guarantees just income to all peoples and the rights of consumers to control their food and nutrition. It ensures that the rights to use and manage our lands, territories, waters, seeds, livestock and biodiversity are in the hands of those of us who produce food. Food sovereignty implies new social relations free of oppression and inequality between men and women, peoples, racial groups, social classes and generations. In addressing all these matters of public policy making, food sovereignty articulates demands in key areas for the realisation of the right to adequate food. Food as a universally recognised human right

The right to adequate food is realised when every man, woman and child, alone or in community with others, has physical and economic access at all times to adequate food or means for its procurement (UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, General Comment 12 on the Right to Adequate Food). The right to food is close to the concept of food security, which the development community is familiar with. But while rights can be claimed by an individual, and the state is obliged to observe them, food security is an objective of the international community and a moral commitment towards the populations. As enshrined in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which belongs to the universally recognised United Nations Bill of Human Rights, the human right to adequate food is an individual and universal right which all human beings hold. With the adoption of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Right to Food in 2004, all 187 member states of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reiterated their commitment and gave themselves practical guidance to realise this right. Uganda has ratified a range of international covenants and committed itself to ending hunger and malnutrition. Moreover, the 1995 Constitution of the Republic of Uganda pledged to ensure food and
( The Objective pledges that the State shall (a) take appropriate steps to encourage people to grow and store adequate food; (b) establish national food reserves; and (c) encourage and promote proper nutrition through mass education and other appropriate means in order to build a healthy State.) nutrition security for all Ugandans and the Uganda

Food and Nutrition Policy (UFNP), adopted in 2003, expressly recognises the human right to adequate food for all. As a signatory of the Millennium Declaration 2000, Uganda has agreed to achieve the eight MDGs by 2015. The right to adequate food: tools and instruments The right to adequate food as a human right not only offers protection mechanisms for victims but also provides governments and civil society with a framework, strategies and principles to orient public policies. Fundamental human rights principles such as participation, non-discrimination, transparency and accountability are useful to guide the processes through which people access adequate food. Furthermore, from a human rights angle, the first steps of a strategy require the identification of who the hungry are and what causes hunger. Development strategies should always focus on the most vulnerable groups of the population. Building upon this, recent developments in the field of human rights monitoring open up new perspectives for practitioners in different development sectors. Various initiatives have led to the development of indicators, budget analysis in a human rights perspective, as well as the elaboration of a monitoring tool for public policies based on the Voluntary Guidelines on the right to food. Uganda is an example of civil society and the government increasingly working with these Guidelines. The faces of hunger and malnutrition in Uganda Like many developing countries, Uganda is rich in natural resources. Thanks to the climatic conditions, a great variety of food can be grown. However, what is also characteristic of developing countries is that hunger and malnutrition still affect a large portion of Ugandas population. According to the countrys 2007 Population Report, about 8,804,000 Ugandans (31 percent of the total population) still live in extreme poverty and hunger. According to the Uganda Poverty Status Report of 2005, the most vulnerable people are women, children (many of them HIV/AIDS orphans), indigenous people and persons internally displaced due to

armed conflict, cattle rustling and natural disasters. Until recently, about 1.8 million people were living in internally displaced camps. Unemployed urban poor are unable to access adequate food, too. The Uganda Demographic and Household Survey 2000/2001 states that over 38 percent of the children under five years were stunted, 4 percent wasted and 22.5 percent underweight. The prevailing levels of childhood malnutrition account for 40 percent of child deaths before the age of five. 39 percent (UDHS 2006). According to UDHS and FHI 360/FANTA-2, 2010, The Analysis of the Nutrition Situation in Uganda, Other indicators have actually worsened over that 15-year period.1 Stunting indicates chronic malnutrition in children; the stunting prevalence rate of 39 percent means that about 2.3 million young children in Uganda today are chronically malnourished. 16 percent from underweight and 6 percent from acute malnutrition. In women, chronic energy deficiency was 12 percent in the 2006 Uganda Demographic and Health Survey (UDHS) survey and has been rising across all regions. Uganda has about 2.7 million children under 2 years old, 7.1 million women of reproductive age, and 2 million adolescent girls. These groups account for about 37 percent of Ugandas total population. Effectively addressing the nutritional needs of infants and young children will arrest a lifetime of problems that malnourished children face and will reduce the burdens they impose on the household, the community, and the nation. The nutritional condition of the women who bear these children is equally important, as the health and nutritional well-being of the newborn is determined by the health and nutritional well-being of its mother. However, these two target groups cannot be served in isolation. Most causes of malnutrition are linked to practices or access to resources at the household or community level. Overall access to adequate food in Uganda and the whole of Africa relies heavily on the work of women, who produce 80 percent of the food. Besides working in the fields and marketing the produce on the nearby markets, women have to take care of the household, their spouses, the orphans and their own children. Regardless of their hard work women are second rate in most Ugandan cultures because men have traditionally been the breadwinners. So while women are among the first victims of violations of the right to food, they are also the key to its realisation. (UGANDA NUTRITION ACTION PLAN 2 0 1 1 2 0 1 6;Scaling Up Multi-Sectoral Efforts to Establish a Strong Nutrition Foundation for Ugandas Development ) Working with the right to adequate food in Uganda Discrepancies in Uganda suggest that a closer look at policies on access to food is worthwhile. Mobilising civil society on issues such as human rights, trade, food security, sustainability and community-based development has played a major role in the achievement of legislation and policies in favour of the right to adequate food. As a country receiving FAO support, Uganda is a pioneer in establishing a framework law on the right to food that will ensure policy coherence. Based on these achievements in the national legal framework, a network of NGOs and CSOs (Civil Society Organisations) has started to apply the Voluntary Guidelines to monitor the Ugandan governments activities in fighting hunger and malnutrition and to hold the state accountable for violations of the right to food. And one of the most challenging aspects of human rights monitoring work is to fill identified policy gaps and enhance efficiency to obtain significant improvements towards the realisation of the right to adequate food. One example is the Plan for the Modernisation of Agriculture (the PMA) which was set up by the government in 2000 with the key objective to increase productivity by transforming subsistence agriculture into commercial agriculture and encourage foreign investment

in the rural sector. The Plan recognises the need to make agriculture more profitable by linking it withinitiatives that can improve agricultural marketing. The PMA vision is poverty eradication through a profitable, competitive, sustainable and dynamic agricultural and agro-industrial sector, while its mission is eradicating poverty by transforming subsistence agriculture to commercial agriculture. The Plans policy has failed to adequately use human rights principles and tools to assess its impact, take into account the rights of rural poor and protect them against adverse effects. This chronic disregard of standards established by the human right to food in implementing concrete measures in the agricultural sector is also dramatically illustrated by the case of the Kaweri Plantation in the Mubende district (read more: www.face-it-act-now.org). To make room for a foreign investors coffee plantation, 360 peasant families have been evicted from their traditional land with violence and without prior consultation and compensation. This case shows that countries like Uganda willnot be able to effectively fight hunger if large-scale forcible evictions continue to provoke more hunger and malnutrition. The massive violations of human rights faced by small-scale peasants have not only been identified and heavily criticised by civil society. The government has also announced corrective measures for the protection of small-scale farmers a political and legal achievement of working with human rights.

Obligation to Take Measures to Ensure Enjoyment of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
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