Course Details - Rights-Based Approach to Food and Nutrition Security

The right to adequate food

Is realised when every man, woman and child, alone or in community with others, have the physical and economic access at all times to adequate food or means for its procurement. Adequate food means enough food in quantity and quality, safe and culturally acceptable. 
 
A rights-based approach is a different way to address food and nutrition insecurity; it emphasises the rights of human beings to food and it obligates governments to create adequate pre-conditions to feed oneself as well as the priority for politicians to protect directly the poor and hungry.  In 2004 the FAO Council adopted the “Voluntary Guidelines to support the progressive realisation of the right to adequate food in the context of national food security”, commonly referred to as the Voluntary Guidelines. These guidelines provide guidance to governments to realise the Right to Adequate Food. The definition used of the Right to Adequate Food is not only the access to food but includes also the access to productive resources so that people can produce and acquire their own food. Governments need to devise a national strategy to provide the means that the right to food will be ensured to its population (right holders).  In this course participants will work in groups on designing an intervention to ensure the realization of the Right to Food for the food insecure.

In the course you will gain new insights about

  • concepts and principles within human rightsbased approach, Right to Food, Food and Nutrition security and their interrelationships;
  • the role of right holders, duty bearers and accountability agents, and their main rights, obligations and responsibilities;
  • have clear ideas for incorporating rights-based elements in interventions addressing food and nutrition security;
  • be better equipped to lobby and advocate for the Right to Food;
  • know how to develop interventions by applying a rights-based approach.

Targeting the training

The training targets staff of governmental and non-governmental organisations in the following positions:

  • policy and planning staff at the national and subnational level with responsibility for promoting community and household food and nutrition security within different sectors (agriculture, education, health, community development, local government, planning, etc.);
  • staff working at management and co-ordination level in the management planning and/or implementation of community food security and nutrition programmes or rural development programmes;
  • representatives of civil society involved in a rights based approach to address food and nutrition insecurity;
  • staff working in action-oriented research, advisory and teaching positions directly relevant to food and nutrition security.

Course focus

The course is job-oriented and the training approach is interactive, experience as well as evidencebased: it provides the participants with the possibility to learn from expert facilitators as well as from each other. Transfer of knowledge goes hand in hand with case studies, working groups, etc. A mix of participants with different backgrounds, yet common interests, will provide a good basis for the exchange of experiences.
 
This course focuses on the different aspects of a right to food approach.

The training addresses the following topics: 

  • different concepts used in the right to food approach;
  • how to set-up a lobby and advocacy campaign;
  • how to develop an intervention using a rights based approach to address food and nutrition insecurity.

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