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PARLIAMENTARY ALLIANCES AGAINST HUNGER AND MALNUTRITION First Global Parliamentary Summit. Madrid, October 2018 PARLIAMENTARY ALLIANCES AGAINST HUNGER AND MALNUTRITION URUGUAY October 2017. Members of the Parliamentary Front against Hunger in Latin America and the Caribbean during the Eighth CONTENTS Annual Forum that took place in the General Assembly of Uruguay. ©Department of Photography of the Parliament of Uruguay PAGES 4–5 INTRODUCTION PAGES 6–9 THE CHALLENGES PAGES 10–17 STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS PAGES 18–21 FRAMEWORK FOR ACTION PAGES 22–27 THE ROLE OF PARLIAMENTARIANS PAGES 28–31 A LONG JOURNEY 2 FOOD SECURITY IS THE RESULT OF POLICIES AND PROGRAMMES EMBEDDED IN LEGISLATION. 3 PARLIAMENTARY ALLIANCES AGAINST HUNGER AND MALNUTRITION INTRODUCTION "EVERYONE HAS Parliamentary A RIGHT TO alliances are key to positioning the ADEQUATE, SAFE, fight against hunger SUFFICIENT, AND and malnutrition at NUTRITIOUS the highest level of FOOD AND political agendas. TO FREEDOM FROM HUNGER, NEPAL AND WE Farmer Field School female members working in the fields trying new agricultural adaptation techniques. Nepal is one of the ACKNOWLEDGE countries to have recently recognized the right to food in its constitution. THE NEED ©Chris Steele-Perkins/Magnum Ph/FAO FOR SPECIFIC Eliminating hunger and strengthening social protection CONSTITUTIONAL malnutrition requires policy mechanisms that take nutrition measures with a broad focus into account, investing in AND LEGISLATIVE that encompass all areas of education, health care, water the economy and society. and sanitation, or a combination PROVISIONS TO Depending on each country’s of some of these initiatives. ENSURE THE specific context, the conditions In all cases, gender inequalities for engaging successfully in this must be addressed and the ENJOYMENT OF fight may include increasing mechanisms for coordinating agricultural productivity and and monitoring food security THOSE RIGHTS." access to markets, investing in and nutrition must be improved. family farming and small-scale Extract from the Statement by fisheries and forest holdings, However, for all of this to work, Parliamentarians on the occasion of the Second International Conference on promoting governance of land we need to stimulate collective Nutrition, November 2014 tenure and natural resources, action to lead us towards public 4 policy changes that improve in Madrid in October 2018. political discussion, approving the impact wherever advances Other organizations, such as the budgets and guaranteeing against hunger have come to a Latin American and Caribbean adequate processes for halt and contribute to improving Parliament, the Spanish Agency accountability, as well as for the current diet of a large part of for International Development monitoring, evaluating and the population. FAO is aware of Cooperation (AECID), the implementing programmes. this need and has promoted and Spanish Parliament, the That is why it is necessary to supported several discussion Pan-African Parliament and build a global parliamentary fora on the issue, from the the European Union, also alliance aligned with a Parliamentary Front against participate in these types new way of doing politics, Hunger in Latin America of dialogues. where communities, regions and the Caribbean, created and countries can together in 2009, to the First Global Parliaments are essential for generate strategies that truly Parliamentary Summit against enforcing global commitments guarantee the Human Hunger and Malnutrition held by enacting laws, directing Right to Food. 5 PARLIAMENTARY ALLIANCES AGAINST HUNGER AND MALNUTRITION THE CHALLENGES For the third year in a row the number of undernourished people has increased, reaching 821 million. In addition, one in three people on the planet either does not eat enough or eats poorly: they suffer from malnutrition. ELIMINATING HUNGER AND by structural problems, such as MALNUTRITION: AN URGENT inequality and marginalization, CHALLENGE together with temporary causes, “There is no other way to say such as the rise in conflicts. it; there are no extenuating circumstances. In a world that As if that were not bad enough, produces enough food to feed all one in three people on the its inhabitants, hunger is a crime.” planet suffers from malnutrition, José Graziano da Silva, FAO meaning they either do not Director-General, and Adolfo eat enough or they eat poorly. Pérez Esquivel, Nobel Peace Put simply, one-third of the global Prize laureate, put it in these population has an unbalanced unequivocal terms in June 2018, diet and that can be damaging to when the numbers, which never health in varying degrees. lie, catapulted us back to the past. For several years, the joint efforts Malnutrition ranges from of countries and international undernutrition in all its organizations had managed forms (wasting, stunting or to bring global hunger figures underweight) to micronutrient 1.9 billion adults, of which under control, reducing them deficiency or excess, and 672.3 million were obese. In the year after year. However, 2016 overweight and obesity. The most same year, 41 million children witnessed a setback – the number recent data tell us that there under the age of five were obese. of undernourished people in the are still 46 million underweight world increased to 804 million people and that over 2 billion A person is overweight or obese (compared to 784 million in 2015). lack vital micronutrients (for when they weigh more than they In 2017, this number increased example, iron, zinc or vitamin should in relation to their height, once again, reaching 821 million A). However, the most worrying and an abnormal accumulation people, according to data from the figures, for numerous reasons, are of fat can affect a person’s health. recent FAO report The State of Food those relating to the amount of People become overweight or Security and Nutrition in the World people who are overweight and obese when there is an imbalance 2018. This increase is explained obese, which in 2016 stood at between the calories they 6 KENYA Farmer Lucy Kathegu Kigunda winnows beans in her farm near Meru. Kenya explicitly guarantees the right to adequate food in its constitution. ©FAO/Luis Tato IN ORDER TO ACHIEVE ZERO HUNGER WE NEED TO ADDRESS FOOD INSECURITY, MALNUTRITION AND OVERWEIGHT AT THE SAME TIME. consume (too many) and the poorest. Rising consumption of worry – 50 years ago it was a calories they burn (not enough), high-calorie foods and drinks marginal issue – the speed at increasing their risk of suffering (with a high sugar and fat which it is developing is also a from many non-communicable content) combined with waning major concern. Obesity more diseases, such as heart disease, levels of physical activity, has than doubled between 1984 strokes, diabetes, degenerative rendered excess weight and and 2014. Experts suggest that if joint diseases and some forms of obesity a global problem, and there is no change in policy, cancer, which are difficult to treat one that can be found both in by 2030, the number of and financially costly for society. developing countries and in the overweight and obese people most developed. will have increased from Obesity affects all regions of the 1.33 billion in 2005 to world and all socio-economic However, the spread of this 3.28 billion. In other words, classes, particularly the pandemic is not the only the issue will affect almost 7 PARLIAMENTARY ALLIANCES AGAINST HUNGER AND MALNUTRITION THE CHALLENGES one-third of the global women. In China, forecasts population projected for that suggest that the combined year, according to estimates percentage of overweight and from the 2016 Foresight obese adults will exceed report by the Global Panel on 50 percent by 2030. This does Agriculture and Food Systems and will have negative for Nutrition. consequences for all countries, especially less developed ones, Whether a result of deficiency where the health costs, economic or excess, malnutrition impact and loss of productivity causes different diseases that this causes exacerbate that affect both people’s lives their poverty. Aside from the and countries’ economies. social cost, the cost that all forms Forty-five percent of deaths of malnutrition generate for the among under-fives global economy, as a result of the (2.6 million children) are linked loss of productivity and PHILIPPINES to undernutrition, while the direct costs in health care, Children eating on 3.4 million adults die each year could represent up to plantain leaves in a place near Altavas. as a result of diseases related to 5 percent of global gross In January 2018, FAO obesity and excess weight. domestic product (GDP), and the Government of the Philippines which would be equivalent to launched a pilot Over-nourishment is almost USD 3.5 trillion per year or parliamentary alliance for food security as serious a phenomenon USD 500 per person. It is and nutrition. as undernourishment, with estimated that the costs of ©FAO/Jake Salvador many developing countries undernutrition and micronutrient simultaneously registering deficiencies represent high rates of undernutrition, 2–3 percent of global GDP, SDG2: ZERO HUNGER anaemia (especially among or between USD 1.4 trillion In 2015, the 193 Member States women), obesity and overweight. and USD 2.1 trillion per year. of the United Nations adopted Among sub-Saharan African Although there are no global the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable men, the rate at which the data available on the economic Development, which includes number of overweight and obese costs of people being overweight the 17 Sustainable Development people is growing currently and obese, it is estimated Goals (SDGs). The SDGs, outpaces the rate of growth for that the cumulative cost of all with their 169 targets and the number of underweight non-communicable diseases 250 indicators, are the people. For women in South Asia, – for which being overweight and framework in which the national the prevalence of overweight and obese are among the main risk development plans of each obese women is almost the same factors – reached approximately country should converge in order as the prevalence of underweight USD 1.4 billion in 2010.

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