Thématique N°14

The Right to Food: Putting Words into Action, by Ahmed Mahiou

The problem of food security and the fight against hunger is an “age-old” concern. It is also a problem to which we seem to give more significant attention from time to time.

We can also cite some figures which would boggle the mind. For example, it is estimated that a person dies of starvation in the world every five seconds. All together, this means twelve people die per minute. Throughout an entire day, one would obtain a rather grim result of the number of people who fall victim to a deficiency in their diet, an insufficient food supply or simply put, starvation. The first World Summit on Food Security was held 20-years-ago in 1996. This was the first summit on food security problems which brought heads of State and government together as they noticed that it was vital to ensure world food security, or according to the definition laid out by the summit, or allowing each individual to have access to a sufficient quantity and quality of food in order to live a normal life. The question is: Why have we still not managed to do this?

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