Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right to food on her mission to Zambia, A/HRC/37/61/Add.1
Presented to the Human Rights Council during its thirty-seventh session, 26 February–23 March 2018. See the report in six languages here.
Note by the Secretariat
The Secretariat has the honour to transmit to the Human Rights Council the report of the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Hilal Elver, on her mission to Zambia from 3 to 12 May 2017. In the report, the Special Rapporteur considers the wide range of policies and programmes that Zambia has adopted to strengthen the agricultural sector, given its vital role in the realization of the right to food. Access to adequate and nutritious food is still a challenge throughout most of the country, with women and children in rural areas faring worst. The Government’s policy of turning export-oriented large-scale commercial agriculture into the driving engine of the national economy, in a situation where land protection is weak, runs the risk of pushing peasants off their land, which in turn could push them out of production, with a severe impact on their right to food.
Conclusions and Recommendations
117. Zambia has adopted a wide range of policies and programmes to strengthen the agricultural sector, in turn helping to ensure the effective enjoyment of the right to food as part of the right to an adequate standard of living.
118. Although the implementation of a free-market economic policy has contributed to impressive growth, that growth has not inclusive and not benefited everyone. Access to adequate and nutritious food is a challenge throughout most of the country, with women and children in rural areas faring worst. An alarming 40 per cent of children under 5 years of age in Zambia are stunted.
119. The Government’s policy of turning export-oriented large-scale commercial agriculture into the driving engine of the national economy, in a situation where land protection is weak, runs the risk of pushing peasants off their land, which in turn could push them out of production, with a severe impact on their right to food.
120. In order to meet its human rights obligations, especially the right to food, the Special Rapporteur makes the recommendations below.
Legal and institutional framework
121. The Special Rapporteur recommends that Zambia:
(a) Ratify the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child;
(b) Honour its obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women by taking immediate action to implement principles that protect the livelihood of rural women and eliminate their vulnerability;
(c) Guarantee the inclusion of the explicit recognition in the Constitution of the right to adequate food;
(d) Prepare and adopt a human rights-based national framework law on the right to food, with effective benchmarks and implementation plans for each region, which should include a financial structure that contains the necessary budgetary and taxation measures for support smallholder farmers, as well as gender sensitive budgeting; protect long-term sustainability for agricultural production; establish authorities and agencies responsible for implementation; and provide for proper supervision and accountability mechanisms to promote the full and active participation of all interested parties, including those most vulnerable;
(e) Enact impending legislation, including the social protection bill, fast– track the bill on food and nutrition, and allocate budgetary and human resources for their effective implementation.
Agricultural policy
122. The Special Rapporteur recommends that Zambia:
(a) Adopt a gender-sensitive, inclusive national land policy based on human rights principles, and establish an effective monitoring mechanism;
(b) Ensure an effective land administration system and efficient enforcement of the existing laws and regulations concerning the allocation, sale, transfer and assignment of land;
(c) Amend sections of the Lands and Deeds Registry Act to afford State and customary land equal standing;
(d) Strengthen protection against forced evictions, in accordance with the criteria established by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights;
(e) Ensure the application of the basic principles and guidelines on development-based evictions and displacement (A/HRC/4/18, annex I), which constitute a practical tool to assist States and agencies in developing policies, legislation, procedures and preventive measures to ensure that forced evictions are not made, to prevent violence and to provide effective redress for persons whose human rights have been violated.
Availability
123. The Special Rapporteur recommends that Zambia continue to support smallscale food producers, particularly women and young people, and increase incomes by ensuring fair access to land and other productive resources.
Accessibility
124. The Special Rapporteur recommends that Zambia extend the coverage of school meals to cover 100 per cent of children, giving priority to rural areas, and adopt a simplified system for purchasing agricultural produce from family farming and local producers.
Adequacy
125. The Special Rapporteur recommends that Zambia develop properly financed comprehensive nutrition policies aimed at dealing with stunting and wasting in children, as well as all forms of malnutrition, including obesity and micronutrient deficiency; their impact should be monitored and assessed on the basis of the relevant human rights indicators.
Sustainability
126. The Special Rapporteur recommends that Zambia:
(a) Establish an effective legal and institutional framework for environmental protection that protects human health and prevents soil degradation and water contamination as a result of intensive farming or large-scale animal husbandry;
(b) Legislate to limit the excessive and dangerous use of toxic agrochemical products, providing for appropriate sanctions for those who break the law and adequate compensation for persons affected, together with appropriate implementation monitoring systems;
(c) Promote organic farming and agroecological methods, and provide them with support, including financial mechanisms and the introduction of training programmes on agroecological agriculture.
Population groups
127. The Special Rapporteur recommends that Zambia:
(a) Improve the mainstreaming of the gender perspective in the institutional, legal and legislative framework with regard to the right to adequate strategies and programmes on food and nutritional security and the right to rural development, and support women farmers with additional incentives, access to credit and other agricultural resources;
(b) Take urgent measures to address the issue of child labour in the agricultural sector at its root causes;
(c) Implement international standards to national laws that guarantee refugees and asylum seekers the rights to seek work, to have access to health care and education, and to enjoy freedom of movement.
General
128. The Special Rapporteur also recommends that Zambia:
(a) Ensure the proper functioning of an independent institution overseeing human rights, in accordance with the principles relating to the status of national institutions for the promotion and protection of human rights (the Paris Principles), crucial to the protection and promotion of human rights;
(b) Implement the voluntary guidelines issued by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) on activities relating to the establishment of national agricultural policies, and specifically the Voluntary Guidelines to Support the Progressive Realization of the Right to Adequate Food in the Context of National Food Security, the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security and the Principles for Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Systems;
(c) Continue efforts to implement the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly Goal 2 on ending hunger, achieving food security and improved nutrition, and promoting sustainable agriculture, and establish a human rights-based national review supervision system.