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Universal Declaration on the Eradication of Hunger and Malnutrition

Universal Declaration on the Eradication of Hunger and Malnutrition
Signed 16 November 1974
Location Rome
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The Universal Declaration on the Eradication of Hunger and Malnutrition was adopted on 16 November 1974, by governments who attended the 1974 World Food Conference that was convened under General Assembly resolution 3180 (XXVIII) of 17 December 1973. It was later endorsed by General Assembly resolution 3348 (XXIX), of 17 December 1974. This Declaration combined discussions of the international human right to adequate food and nutrition with an acknowledgement of the various economic and political issues that can affect the production and distribution of food related products. Within this Declaration, it is recognised that it is the common purpose of all nations to work together towards eliminating hunger and malnutrition. Further, the Declaration explains how the welfare of much of the world’s population depends on their ability to adequately produce and distribute food. In doing so, it emphasises the need for the international community to develop a more adequate system to ensure that the right to food for all persons is recognised. The opening paragraph of the Declaration, which remains to be the most recited paragraph of the Declaration today, reads:

“Every man, woman and child has the inalienable right to be free from hunger and malnutrition in order to develop fully and maintain their physical and mental faculties.”

The Universal Declaration on the Eradication of Hunger and Malnutrition affirmed that it is a fundamental human right to be free from hunger and malnutrition, so that one can develop both their mental and physical faculties fully. This Declaration arose out of ever-growing concerns regarding worldwide famine, and in doing so, stressed that every country that is in a position to be able to assist developing nations to gain access to more, better quality food, has the responsibility to ensure that this right to food is realized.

The prevalence of hunger and malnutrition is an issue that has long been of international concern. Although it has been accepted that obtaining exact statistics regarding world hunger is difficult, it is believed that in the early 1960s, there were approximately 900 million undernourished individuals worldwide. The majority of these individuals were located in developing nations in the regions of Africa, Asia and Latin America. It is believed that today, one in every nine individuals do not have adequate access to food. Hunger and malnutrition have now been identified as the cause of more deaths worldwide than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. Today it is estimated that there are approximately 1.02 billion people across the world living in conditions of extreme hunger, 1 billion of whom live in developing countries. Hunger and malnutrition have been of growing concern throughout the international community, despite a number of intervention attempts from the likes of States and non-government organisations. The right to food, for example, was asserted in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights(UDHR), and was again recognised in 1966 through Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.


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