The role of development cooperation and food aid in realising the right to adequate food: Moving from charity to obligation

This paper from the UN Special Rapporteur for the right to food tries to show how to integrate the food rights approach into food aid and cooperation for development programmes. It needs to be integrated at three levels: i) in the definition of the obligations of donor States., ii) in the identification of the tools on which these policies rely., iii) in the evaluation of these policies.

The Rapporteur highlights that if the right to food is integrated correctly, the effect will be a change from the old bilateral Donor State / Recipient State relationship to a new tripartite relationship in which the ultimate beneficiaries of these policies play an active role.

Olivier de Schutter, UN Special rapporteur on the right to food - February 2009