Hunger_Eradication_Instrument_Second_Edition

Living Document1 - Comments are welcome Version: 26 February Towards a Global Convention on the Eradication of Hunger and Severe Malnutrition2 Andrew MacMillana & Jose Luis Viverob Summary This paper argues that the starting point for considering the possible scope of a “Global Partnership for Food and Agriculture”, as proposed in Hokkaido by G-8 leaders, must be a definition of the goals to be achieved and of the main instruments required to attain those goals We propose concentration a single goal – the eradication of hunger and severe malnutrition throughout the world no later than 2025 It is now feasible for the first time in history to make the scourge of hunger and malnutrition part of humanity’s past However the persistent failure of most nations to take action on the scale required is needlessly killing millions of our fellow humans, including over million young children every year It condemns many others to life-long exposure to ill health and to social exclusion The achievement of this goal requires well orchestrated actions at an unprecedented scale by many actors, governmental and nongovernmental, over a sustained period, but it is entirely feasible After a flurry of action, spurred by a rise in international food commodity prices in 2007-8, the level of attention being given by governments to addressing food insecurity and malnutrition is in danger of diminishing as food prices fall and countries re- focus their attention on the credit crunch and global recession Although the international institutions can certainly improve their performance, the main reason for the failure to reduce hunger and malnutrition does not rest so much with them as on a lack of motivation and commitment on the part of most governments of both developed and developing countries This, in turn, is a consequence of general ignorance in society about the vast scale of death, illness and human misery in the world caused by hunger and malnutrition and of what can be done to stop it The paper, therefore, proposes a Global Convention to Eradicate Hunger and Severe Malnutrition within which those governments of both developed and developing nations that are genuinely determined to end hunger can commit themselves to mutually agreed but binding goals, strategies and actions that would be sustained until their aims are achieved It sets out proposals for a process, involving a high level of civil society participation, to build a strong constituency of public support for hunger eradication that would embolden governments to make the necessary commitments It suggests how this could lead to the incubation, approval, ratification and implementation of an international Convention Finally, it notes that the arrangements for its management could respond to the call for a Global Partnership for Food Security, grounded in the UN system but avoiding the creation of any new international body a An individual who is personally committed to ending hunger and malnutrition, with no current institutional affiliations Email andrew.macmillan@alice.it b Fellow of the Chair on Hunger and Poverty Studies of University of Cordoba, Spain E-mail: joseluisvivero@gmail.com For an explanation of the context of this paper, see end-notes and 1 Thoughts on a Global Partnership for Food Security In 2008 the G-8 Leaders proposed the creation of a “Global Partnership for Food and Agriculture”3 or, in the terminology used by the UN High-Level Task Force, a “Global Partnership for Food Security” With millions of people needlessly dying each year because of hunger in a world of ample food supplies4, nobody can dispute the need for institutional mechanisms that raise the level of attention given to food security-related issues and lead to better coordinated action amongst the many actors that are concerned with the multiple dimensions of the problem Indeed, in spite of remarkable success in expanding food production to keep pace with a very rapid growth in demand5 and of successive commitments at Summits to reduce the incidence of hunger, a vast number of people still suffer from food shortages and malnutrition on a daily basis – and the number is continuing to rise Hunger is now arguably “the gravest single threat to the world’s public health”, as hunger and malnutrition have a far greater impact upon child health than was previously thought6 With almost a billion people undernourished and as many as two billion suffering from micronutrient deficiencies, the state of the world’s nutrition is woeful At least 40% of humanity suffer from some form of malnutrition that has the potential to damage their health7 While there has been progress since 1990 in reducing the percentage of under five years old children who are underweight, almost 150 million children in the developing world remain undernourished8 Despite years of international anti-hunger efforts, hunger has always been on the rise And the one billion people now suffering from hunger might not be the peak number It could become much higher This trend has been boosted by the recent 2007-2008 food price crisis, yielding a gloomy figure of 115 million additional undernourished people9 And recent World Bank estimates suggest that the spreading global economic crisis will push 200 million more people to poverty Moreover, preliminary estimates for 2009 to 2015 forecast that an average 200,000 to 400,000 more children a year, a total of 1.4 to 2.8 million, may die if the crisis persists10 Although there is no clear agreement about the absolute figures 11, up to 5.5 million children die every year of causes attributed to maternal and child under-nutrition, which represents over half of the 9.2 million under-five deaths worldwide In round numbers, this means that 1,000,000 pneumonia deaths, 800,000 diarrhoea deaths, 500,000 malaria deaths, and 250,000 measles deaths could be prevented by the eradication of child undernutrition On top of that, nearly two million children die each year because they lack clean water and toilet facilities These numbers place prevention of undernutrition among children as one of the top priorities for action in efforts to reduce child mortality12 The most lethal form of undernutrition (wasting or acute malnutrition) is a phenomenon that at any given moment impacts on 55 million children, with about 19 million of them suffering from the most deadly form, what means they will likely die or, at best, will survive for a while on the brink of death In contrast to common belief, wasting is by no means a simple by-product of conflict or famine: it has complex causes that reflect fundamental failures in long-term development processes, and not simply sudden and dramatic collapses Most premature deaths not happen in acute emergencies, but in relatively stable countries where a large segment of the population has, over many years, suffered from chronic undernourishment13 However, today less than 10% of the 19 million severely malnourished children, get the treatment they need Nine out of ten children remain untreated14 Ironically, the international community has become much more adept at saving the lives of wasted children in the context of catastrophes than in the context of development It is in governments’ own interests to act, because the persistence of wasting is not only a moral scandal, but also applies the brake to economic and political progress The cost of undernutrition to national economic development is estimated at US$20-30 billion per annum15 Reducing malnutrition is central to reducing poverty As long as large-scale malnutrition persists, development goals for the coming decade will not be reached It would cost about $US8 billion a year to assist 100 million families to protect their children from hunger and malnutrition16, and $US30 billion a year to attain food security for all In contrast, current donor spending on programmes to reduce undernutrition is only about $US250 – $US300 million annually17 The fact that millions of people are still dying each year prematurely because of a lack of adequate food when the world is able to produce enough for all to eat demands urgent, sustained and massive attention, within global and national institutional frameworks that are properly equipped to address the issues on the scale required and in ways that respect national sovereignty and the dignity of individuals Under current programmes, rates of undernutrition among children are declining in most countries at 1% per year or less, a very low figure that is totally unacceptable18 It may, however, be putting the cart before the horse to give much thought to a new institutional architecture until deeper consideration has been addressed to understanding the reasons for lack of decisive action until now, to defining the goals to be achieved and to considering the instruments to be put in place The recent food crisis that has sparked interest in new institutional arrangements has illustrated the extraordinary degree of interconnectedness that now exists within the world’s food management systems Thus, for example, the policies adopted by one country (e.g to subsidise grain-based biofuel production for vehicles, using farm products that might otherwise have been available to feed people or farm animals) can drive up the cost of staple cereals all around the world, with the effect of inadvertently forcing millions more of our fellow humans into a situation of chronic undernourishment and the most abject poverty The implication of this and many other possible examples is that, if only on ethical grounds, issues to with production technologies19, food supply, trade, distribution and environmental policy that can significantly affect the number of people who are either well fed or hungry, have to be considered in a global context rather than simply from the perspective of a single country or group of countries The crisis has also awoken the world to the underlying weaknesses in the global food management system, including the non-sustainability of the input-intensive farming technologies being used to expand food output, the lack of mechanisms to ensure a safe level of global food stocks and the fact that, even when food is available, it remains out of reach of those who need it most, while being squandered in waste and over-consumption at the other end of the spectrum The Role of Inter-Governmental Institutions It is the recognition of this growing global interdependence and the complexity of food security issues that justifies the call for institutions that can facilitate better coordination between countries as well as between the many other actors, including those from within civil society, now increasingly involved in the various dimensions of food system management Improving food security and nutrition is not simply a matter of increasing food supplies but also of addressing the other important factors that determine whether or not people are able to exercise their right to adequate food Important considerations relate to where and how food is produced, equitable trade arrangements and prices, income distribution and social protection, access to land, population, knowledge of nutrition, public health and hygiene, and environmental management20 that can only be addressed by stronger partnerships between institutions that have until now tended to work largely independently from each other Recent history suggests that, even if the level of government representation is more elevated than at present21, existing inter-governmental bodies are unlikely to be successful in ensuring the level of commitment required to trigger action on the scale needed to bring about a massive and sustainable reduction in hunger and malnutrition There are two main reasons for this First, in spite of the commitments that they have repeatedly made, only a few governments are strongly motivated to address food security and nutrition issues directly, while many assume that the problems will disappear as a consequence of economic growth – a view that has been fashionable until recently also in international financing agencies22 and amongst the managers of bilateral aid programmes23 Clearly, national governments and the international community together are not doing enough to address seriously high rates of wasting that continue, year after year, largely ignored and are killing up to 25,000 people daily24 Secondly, unfortunately, the general pattern in existing inclusive inter-governmental institutions responsible for dealing with issues of global concern is for delegates to assume positions that respond to the short-term interests of their domestic constituencies rather than ones which ensure the greatest good to mankind as a whole – one of the unfortunate downsides of democratic systems of government! The need within these institutions, even when meeting at Summit level, to arrive at consensual agreements and declarations acceptable to all – or almost all – nations makes it virtually impossible for them to reach a point at which members engage themselves in binding commitments A serious consequence has been a general under-investment in the provision of global public goods In the case of food management, it is significant that the declarations of successive World Food Summits and high-level meetings, while establishing or reiterating global targets, not commit individual countries to any specific goals or actions for reducing hunger at a national level or for providing funds towards the costs of hunger eradication 25 Nobody can, therefore, be held accountable for success or failure in reducing hunger To a certain extent the same is true of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) This has been ratified by 159 countries that recognise “the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger” amongst many other rights, but how and within what the time-scale which these rights are to be assured is ambiguous In the last few years, however, there has been encouraging progress towards the wider recognition of the right to food, as countries adopt the “Voluntary Guidelines”26, including through incorporating the principles in constitutional changes The untiring work of successive UN Special Rapporteurs on the Right to Food has also served to highlight gross violations27 Finally an Operational Protocol to the ICESCR has recently been approved and will be open for ratification in March 200928, opening the way for citizens of signatory nations to submit complaints to the ICESCR Committee In spite of all this progress, however, the ICESCR remains a “blunt instrument” with which to bring about an immediate drop in deaths caused by hunger and malnutrition, though it provides an extremely important element in the arsenal of weapons with which to address the problem The wasted child cannot wait Millions of children need immediate, life-saving attention coupled with coordinated longer-term investments that will help prevent repetitions The world cannot afford to waste another decade talking about global targets, ratifying the Optional Protocol, waiting for the macroeffects of economic and political development to reach children ignored by the development process This implies a need to look for a set of instruments that can strengthen the effectiveness of the institutions responsible for managing global food systems Above all, these have to be designed in such a way that they act in the long-term global interest even when this may have negative short-term side-effects on some of the individual countries that champion them They must also involve the self-imposition by all those governments that are motivated to participate of binding and monitorable long-term commitments And, while respecting the decision-making responsibilities of governments and the convening responsibilities of the UN system, they must provide for the full engagement of civil society29, including the representatives of all those engaged in food production, distribution and consumption30 Recent experience suggests that it is through treaties and conventions, involving “coalitions of the willing” that it is possible to raise the level, reliability and sustainability of commitments for achieving important global goals and correcting injustices A convention or treaty to end hunger-related deaths would strengthen the hand of existing intergovernmental institutions to fulfil their mandates in addressing the various dimensions of food security, defining their obligations with greater clarity and encouraging a fuller integration of their programmes, especially at national levels within developing countries We propose, therefore, that in parallel to adjustments to the existing institutions 31, priority could also be given to creating a new binding framework within which they can operate with greater effectiveness32, as a result of sharpened goals, an agreed plan of action and more predictable funding (conditional, of course, on an end to their rivalrous behaviour which is, in the authors’ opinion, a main cause of their diminished effectiveness in tackling hunger)33 Setting a Clear Goal The starting point for any consideration of the shape of a new framework for the global food system must be agreement on what it is intended to achieve 34 We propose one immediate, unambiguous and readily monitorable goal: To ensure that all people now living on earth can enjoy the food that they need to be free from the threat of death or prolonged ill health due to hunger and severe malnutrition, within the shortest time that is humanly possible, but no later than 202535 The currently accepted intermediate target of halving the proportion (or number) of people who are hungry by 2015, retained in the MDG and World Food Summit follow-up processes, has distracted attention from the already agreed ultimate goal of eradicating hunger that tends to be forgotten The 2015 target has all the weaknesses of any half-measure – it fails to inspire a sense of urgency and unity and, even if achieved, it effectively condemns the other half to continued hunger It also fails to address forms of malnutrition other than undernourishment that are hugely debilitating and life-threatening for millions of people and require similar interventions but are not yet covered by any explicit international goal 36 Nothing short of an absolute goal of permanently eradicating hunger and severe malnutrition throughout the world (and reflecting this in national goals) within a relatively short period will galvanize the necessary public support, political commitment, creativity and action 37 There are enormously powerful moral, human rights, economic and security justifications to turn the focus towards that ultimate goal, but the strongest argument is that it is now technically possible and affordable38, and that not to adopt it implies the needless condemnation of millions of humans to premature death and to exposure to ill health and suffering throughout their shortened span of life on our shared earth Eliminating malnutrition would remove one-third of the global burden of disease and increase child survival rates very significantly39 Monitoring progress towards the achievement of this goal could be based on the following indicators, eventually using data gathered in “real time”, using modern technologies and a non-traditional approach (e.g mobile phone interviews):  Undernourishment (FAO monitors)  Stunting, also known as growth retardation or child chronic undernutrition, indicated by low height for age (