9UNP0201SD_Florence_Chenoweth_WordPress

- Okay, it's my pleasure today to introduce our speaker, Florence Chenoweth. And I've had the pleasure of working with Florence in a couple of different outreach events, and hearing her speak on the subject of hunger, and her work with hunger. There's really not a better person on our campus, really, in a great part of the world, who can really speak about the issue of hunger from very front line experience. From the time that she left Liberia and came to Madison, and got her degrees here, starting in the early '70s, and then returning to Liberia and working in their government, in the Ministry of Agriculture, holding leadership roles, and groundbreaking leadership roles in Liberia, and then moving on to the UN. This year is the 60th anniversary of the Human Rights Initiative with the UN. And having Florence here is sort of our recognition of that event. And there's some more explanation about the Human Rights Initiative and the right to food in the handouts that you were given. Currently, Florence came back to campus. And she was a visiting scholar and honorary fellow, and now is holding the position of Managing Director of the UW Human Rights Initiative. We're lucky we get to hang onto her for a while longer. 

The other thing we're really proud of is that Florence is a past winner of the Distinguished Alumni Award. So I'm going to now pass the microphone to Florence. If you could please join me in welcoming Florence Chenoweth. 
(applause)
 
- Is it okay, can you hear me back there? Thanks very, very much for coming. I cannot imagine that so many people want to hear about the doom and the gloom of a hungry world. I'll tell you one thing. I know one person that is tired of hearing about it. 

And that is my son, who was born right here in Madison in 1982. When he went to the university, because I was globetrotting, he went to school at an American university in Switzerland. I was invited to that campus to speak. And this child, forgetting how much his education was costing me, arranged a dinner with what started to be two friends, and ended up to be 17. And then he cautioned me at the airport to please not speak to them about hunger. 
(laughter)
 And please don't ask them to eat everything on their plates. 
(laughter)
 Well, after feeding them, at Swiss prices, and treating them to a movie, and then hearing them say after the movie that they wanted to go to Burger King, I felt like telling them about world hunger. But I didn't. 
(laughter)

The right to food, a world that is hungry. A world that cannot wait. I would like to begin my statement on the topic by commending the co-sponsors of the Global Hotspot Lecture series, the UW-Madison Division of International Studies, and the Wisconsin Alumni Association, for taking some time out of their program series to talk about this subject. By this action, they have taken a significant step in a gradual recognition that treating food as a human right is practical, operational, and it adds value. The sad fact is that in our world today, the state of the poor and the hungry can best be described through data and statistic, that catalogs death, disability and suffering. When I first received the invitation to present this lecture, I immediately accepted. With the day to day worsening of the world food situation, we must never miss the opportunity to speak out and to act where we can in support of the millions and millions that cannot act or speak for themselves. They cannot do this. And the cameras and the media are turned away from them. 

The basic fact stands. Food for all is a human right. But it is a right that over 50 million of our fellow humankind that are hungry are denied. The historical development of the expression human rights and how the idea of human rights really became a universal political ideology, and the yardstick by which many of us began to measure human progress had its beginning right here in the United States. It started at the end of World War II. So the timeline on the discussion of this topic dates back to January 6, 1941, and to a famous speech by your own US president, Franklin Roosevelt. The four freedoms. The freedom from want, the freedom from religion, the freedom of expression, were all in that four freedom statement. I have provided a handout to give you the story. When the World War ended, it was not lost, fortunately, because it was embraced by leaders around the world. 

And it, today, is part of what we know as the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted on December 10, 1948. Looking specifically at the right to food as a human right, let me say very simply, because here again, there is a handout for you. It is a right to feed oneself and one's family in dignity. It is the right to enjoy this, and to have continuous access to the resources that will enable people to produce, to earn, or purchase enough food, not only to prevent hunger, but also to ensure health and well-being. According to international law, every human being has the right to adequate food, and to be free from hunger. This covers quality, quantity, and cultural acceptability. The right to food, however, is not the right to be fed. In rare situations, where we have disasters, for reasons beyond the control of countries or people, the right to food means that emergency assistance must be given to feed others. The right to food is commonly mistaken as being the same as food sovereignty. It is not. 

A clear distinction is provided by the United Nations, and says that the right to food is a recognized human right with international treaties according it full legal protection. The right does not prescribe specific economic policies and it is flexible about the methods countries can use to achieve their own food security. The right focuses on accountability and participation of individuals in the political process and re-address mechanisms. Food sovereignty, on the other hand, is a political concept promoted mainly by several societies and academia. It emphasizes self-reliance, protection of domestic markets, ecological production and the idea that people should define their own type of food and agriculture. The right to food implies that every human being has the right, as I said, to adequate food, and the right to be free from hunger. This fact, I must admit, is a complex one, with profound implication. A question often raised is whether the right to adequate food is a legal binding right. The answer is yes. According to international law, it is a legally binding right in all states that have ratified the Social and Economic and Cultural Rights Treaty. 

And as of today, there are 158 nations around the world that have done so. A number of countries are in the process of including the right in their constitution and some have done that. I'd like to give you one example of where the right to food has been tested. I use the case of India. The right to food was tested some years ago when the government of India had silos in a province where food was stored for sale and for future use. And people in this province had been hit by a drought. Hunger prevailed, and some were at the stage of starvation. These people, realizing their right, took the government to court. The case has gone on from 2001, and it is still in the Supreme Court. However, a lot of things have happened since then. 

And a lot of advances have been made. The government has a law that India can no longer have food in storage while people are dying. It has to be released. Secondly, the government has a program that makes it mandatory in all government schools and government assisted primary schools that every child has to have, on a daily basis, a hot cooked meal. The program currently serves over 50 million children cooked meals. And it is the world's largest school feeding program. Like all human rights, the right to food imposes on the state three types of obligations. Respect, which means non-interference with the enjoyment of the right to food. Protect, which means ensuring that the third parties, non-state, do not infringe upon the enjoyment of the right. And fulfill, which means taking positive steps to realize the right to food. 

Human rights protect and promote integrity and dignity of all human beings. And I cannot say it for all rights, as you will hear from the person that I think is the champion on human rights, Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland, who will be in our state and on this campus September 26, to kick-off our human rights program. But let me leave it to Mary Robinson. Let me just refer to one statistic about what is happening in terms of hunger related issues. According to figures reported in this year's UNICEF report, and you all know it, the state of the world's children. Fewer children are dying today than in 1960, the earliest year for which the annual number of child deaths is currently available. When I read this, I was all cheers. But then I read on. The report states that over the past 46 years, the annual number of child deaths has been cut in half. Hooray. 

It has been cut from 20 million in 1960 to 10 million in 2006. The actual figure is that 9.7 million children died before their fifth birthday in 2006. That, dear friends, is over 26,000 children a day. Remembering that these children are dying mostly out of the view of the media and their flashing cameras, I did the math. I compared this large number of daily loss of children's lives to a situation that worldwide media did focus on, the disastrous tsunami, which occurred in Asia a few years ago. A daily loss of 26,000 children is equal to a tsunami a week, according to my calculation, or 52 tsunamis a year. These children die from a disease or a combination of preventable diseases, all from sheer hunger. Simply put, the children die because they were born in the trap of poverty that their parents were unable to break out of. The death of a child is a tragic loss. Over 26,000 deaths a day from a disease that can be prevented or treated by existing, inexpensive means. 

All from hunger in a world that, even today, in the midst of the crisis, has enough food to feed everyone, it's morally wrong. It is a shameful fact. It is a terrible indictment of our world in 2008. And I am sure that you will agree with me, it is an issue that needs to be solved. Let me move on to the current world food crisis and human rights. We have all heard the declaration, because it's in the media everywhere. We are in the midst of a world food crisis that is worsening, and one that is a very serious threat to the realization of the right of food for all. We have been told by the United Nations and agricultural research entities that we must double global food production to feed a world population currently at six billion, and is expected to rise to nine billion by 2050. Take it from me, we are not prepared at present to meet this challenge. For those of us that were around in the 1970s, we would remember hearing about a world food crisis in 1973-74, and other smaller crises, none of which compares to what we have today. 

Those crises were driven by floods in one region, droughts in another, and conflicts here and there. They were typical in nature, and had geographical footprints. They had limited duration. And the key factor was that the population that they affected were relatively homogeneous. We see clearly that this food crisis is different. It is driven mainly by high food prices and fuel prices. And it has been, and as has been observed by the UN and the USA Agency for International Development, and others, it is likely to be much more diffused in the locations affected. It is likely to last a longer time, to persist a longer time. And who is affected is going to be anybody's guess. The Director General of the Food and Agricultural Organization first called world attention to the risk of social political unrest due to hunger in December, 2007, based on an assessment that the agency had done. 

He indicated that $1.7 billion was needed in grants to enable the farmers of poor countries to have access to fertilizer, seed, and animal feed that had risen by 98%, 72%, and 60% respectively. Unfortunately, this urgent call for help, for people to help themselves went unheeded. As he stated in his message in June, 2008, at the World Food Conference in Rome, it was only when the destitute, and those excluded from the banquets of the rich, took to the streets to voice their own discontent and despair, that the first support of food aid began to emerge. In May, 2008, the seven sections of the Human Rights Council convened in Geneva. The negative impact of the realization of the right to food was their theme. This special session was the first ever to focus on a single theme. The UN took two other steps this year to governize international action in support of concrete short-term measures to assist the world hunger, and for medium and long-term measures to combat the impact of the food crisis. The first was a setting up of a task force on global food crisis under leadership of the Secretary General. And charged with the responsibility to create a prioritized plan of action and coordinate its implementation. The second important UN action was a high level conference that became de facto a summit on world food security. 

The challenges of climate change and bio-energy was the topic of that conference. It was held in Rome in June. It involved 181 governments and 41 heads of state of government. And it involved the Secretary General and all of the UN agencies. The implication of soaring food prices and related issues were considered over the entire period. Food prices rose in 2007-08 substantially. And this has led to an additional 50 million people around the world being classified as hungry. Remember, the millennium development goal calls on us to reduce the number of hungry people by half by 2015. In the last three years, food prices worldwide have risen 83%, sowing the seed of increased malnutrition and illness, hunger, death and political instability. Looking just at one food item, we see that since 2005, the price of rice has been on a steady climb upward. 

It has risen by 141% in the last year alone. Rice, let me remind you, is a key component of the daily diet of three billion people around the world, or half of the world's population. And it is important to then also, because it forms one-third of their calories intake each day. Stressing the point of the current world food crisis is one that has recently had tragic social and political consequences on different continents, with riots and death, that can endanger world peace and stability. The FAO head told the representatives at the food conference in June that the sad events were, "The chronicle of disaster foretold." He reminded the 181 country representatives that in 1996, in that very chamber where they were meeting, 112 heads of state in government and the representatives of 186 members of the organization solemnly pledged to reduce by half the number of hungry in the world by 2015. And they adopted a program to achieve this. But already in 2002, we had to convene a second world summit. This was to draw international attention to the fact that resources to finance agricultural programs in developing countries were decreasing instead of increasing. The director general warned that if that trend persisted, the summit task of halving the number of hungry people would not be reached until 2050, not 2015. 

Two weeks ago, the director general said that the facts speak for themselves in another meeting of world leaders in Brazil. He said that in 1980-2005, aid to agriculture fell from $8 billion in 2004, in real terms, it fell to $3.4 billion in 2006. In real terms, this was a 58% drop. Agricultural share of official development assistance fell from 17% in 1980 to only 3% in 2006. The international and regional financial institutions saw a drastic reduction in resources allocated to the activity that constituted the principal livelihood of 70% of the world's population. When we consider the reality of poverty in today's world, a world where there is already, as I said, enough food to feed all of us, and where one billion people live in poverty, that is closely linked to injustice and exploitation. Where the environment is being degraded, not only to support growth, but also the mere survival of the poor. We cannot but ask ourselves what has gone wrong. The food crisis all over the world has been attributed to several factors. I mentioned one earlier, and we will look at them briefly. 

For me, number one is poverty. I will start with poverty because I believe that it is the element that impacts on hunger and food insecurity as nothing else. With 60% of global population being almost equally poor, and receiving less than 6% of the world's income, with annual income of the richest 500 people in the world exceeding that of the poorest 416 million, and with the costs of any extreme poverty being around $300 billion, less than 2% of the income of the richest 10% of the world's population, my friend, poverty is the world's greatest problem. Poverty is multi-dimensional, involving not only in lack of income, but ill health, illiteracy, lack of access to basic social services, and little or no opportunity to participate in the process that influence people's lives. It is also pervasive, as 1.2 billion people around the globe still live on less than a dollar a day. Over 800 million people go to bed hungry. Over 5 million children die every year, and many others are left blind in a world where relatively inexpensive vaccine and treatments for many of the diseases that they die from have been available for over 40 years. In a world where a treatable disease like tuberculosis kills 1.7 million people a year, and most of them in their prime productive years, and in a world where over one billion people, one-sixth of the world's population still lack access to improved drinking water. The soaring food prices is second on my list. States that do not have the measures in place that will protect the most vulnerable segments of their populations from shocks, which may affect either availability of food, in quality or quantities sufficient to satisfy their dietary needs according to the world, they are increasing in number. 

The third point is the dramatic decline in agricultural investment over the past three decades, which I have alluded to. The fourth point is the production of biofuel. To borrow another quote from a statement of the FAO Director General at the conference, "Nobody can understand, at least I can't, how a carbon market of $64 billion can be created in the developed countries to offset global warming, but that no funds can be formed to prevent the deforestation of 13 million hectors, especially in developing countries where tropical forests ecosystem acts as a carbon sink for some 190 gigatons." And nobody can understand how $11 billion to $12 billion in subsidy in 2006, in protection of tariff policies have had the effect of diverting 100 million tons of cereal from human food consumption, mostly to satisfy a thirst for fuel for our vehicles. Fifth, animal and plant diseases. We have all heard of the bird flu and know of the billions of dollars that is being spent to contain it. You know what our fear is? Not the impact that the bird flu has had on the poor, but to prevent this virus from becoming a human disaster by mutating into one that affects human beings. Similarly, we all know what happens in terms of price rises and restricted availability when a crop in one part of the country is affected by a disease in a crop in another country. Number six, climate change due to global warming. 

Climate change remains a serious challenge for food and security. Vulnerable areas in the poor will be particularly hit by climate change. Small and poor indigenous communities are faced with changes affecting their livelihood and social structure. For example, temperature changes in the ocean could affect the fish stock. And we all know that many coastal communities depend on this for their survival. In vulnerable areas in Africa, Asia and Latin America, climate change could affect the existence of millions, especially in rural areas and coastal areas. Such prospects are especially alarming, since agriculture is now increasingly recognized as a crucial element in addressing poverty and food security. All changes in the agricultural production have a considerable effect on the situation of women, given their crucial role in food production. In the climate change debate, adaption is increasingly being seen as the key priority. Adapting at an accelerated pace is seen as crucial for the secure development of vulnerable populations. 

It is estimated that 1.4 billion rural people who depend on small scale farming in developing countries will be affected. These men and women will be differently affected to climate change. We know that. But they will be affected, nonetheless. The last one for me, is poor planning at international and national levels. Decades of neglect of the agricultural system in parts of the developing world has gotten us into the mess that we are in today. Meeting the challenge of today's food crisis, I am sure that if each of us in this audience were asked to come up with a "to do" list for meeting the challenges of the current food insecurity in our world, we would have a list that would have similar points and some that are quite different. My own list would include the following. Increase investment in the agricultural sector. Agriculture has been a neglected sector for too many years. 

A definition of priorities in both official development assistance and of national governments. All actors now agree, thank God, on the need to massively invest in agriculture in order to make up for the short sighted policies of the past. Indeed, investing in agriculture is the most effective way to combat extreme poverty, particularly in agriculturally based countries. In China, GDP growth originating in agriculture has been estimated to be 3.5 times more effective in reducing poverty than growth outside of agriculture. And for Latin America, 2.7% more. According to the world bank cross country comparisons showed that on an average, GDP growth originating in agriculture is at least twice as effective in reducing poverty as GDP growth originating outside of agriculture. A decision to catalyze public and private investment would accelerate the entire hunger strategy in the important declaration adopted by the 180 countries and the European Union at the World Food Summit. The objective of the strategy was to restore sustainable agriculture as a key force for development and to harness the huge latent energies of the world's small farmers of the world's poor to that end. The third for me, is to place the right to adequate food at the center of all of the efforts of the international community. This would have much more than a purely symbolic significance. 

It would not mean only that governments should take into account their human rights obligation when discussing issues such as climate change, international trade or development cooperation, but rather it would carry the message that the right to food should guide the response of states, individually and collectively to the new situation created by the soaring prices of food. It will guide us in our search for a solution, a new deal for agriculture, which is called for around the world. And finally, it would help us move along the causality chain from the situation of the hungry and the malnourished to the action and omission which results in such violation of the right to food, without neglecting any of the factors which we can act upon. My concluding remarks. Hunger is not a new word in human history. Hunger is exclusive, however, exclusive from the land, from jobs, from wages, from income, from life and from citizenship. When a person gets to the point of not having anything to eat, it is because all of the rest has been denied. This is a mortal form of exile. It is death in life. This is what was written by the Brazilian director of the Anti-hunger Program who said it goes back as far back as 1908, and it is one that we talk about even today. 

He summed up the desperation facing each and every one of the hungry people as being just that, desperate. Together, I will tell you that this denial, for this many people, and there are many, is wrong. Individually, these people each represent a human being who faces obstacles in fulfilling a fundamental human right. The right to food. Incorporating rights and principles into traditional development approaches may simply be the missing element which has prevented 50 years of development aid from overcoming hunger and poverty. There is a need to move away from the benevolence model of aid to a sustainable and even environment in which people can feed themselves. Empowerment is the key to doing this. A right-based approach can help not only achieve food security, but also to meet international poverty reduction goals, while simultaneously recognizing human dignity and the inherent worth of every individual. The right to food calls for a shift in the paradigm from charity to rights. Ensuring that every human being has an adequate sustainable supply of food is more than a moral imperative or an investment with potentially huge economic returns. 

It is a realization of a basic human right. The world has the means, even now, to realize this. Because I remind you again, our planet has enough food to feed everyone today. Tonight, over 850 million women, men and children, human beings just like you and me, will go to bed hungry. They would have endured yet another day of having a promise of adequate food for all, at all times, that was conceived in the 20th century, failing to come to fruition in the 21st century. They would have lived through yet another day of being viewed as objects of sympathy. Seen through lenses of charity. Tomorrow, those that will survive the night will go on hoping and dreaming that they will be seen correctly, as people who face obstacles in fulfilling a fundamental human right, and that this will lead to the strengthening of legal standings of the right to food across the world. When this happens, the human challenge of the 21st century, achieving the right to food would have been met. The right to food, a world that is hungry, a world that cannot wait is the focus of today's talk. 

As you listen to me speak and probably reflected on all that you have been reading and hearing in the media about the current food crisis, did you decide on just what it is that the world cannot wait for? When I chose the topic for my talk, I did ask myself the question, when it comes to food, hunger and human rights, what is it that the world cannot wait for. I concluded the following. The world cannot wait for us to look at hunger and poverty, both of which exposes deep inequalities in social, political and economic systems, and find what it takes to motivate us to think critically about the values and assumptions that underly the current situation. The world cannot wait for us to ask and answer the question, what is our ethical obligation to address these inequalities. The world cannot wait for us to do what is moral and right, find ways and the means to resolve the obstacle that keeps this 21st century world from honoring each person's right to a standard of food security that is necessary for their human dignity. The world cannot wait for a truly global perspective, one that will embrace commonality of issues and partnerships. And as Bill Gates said at the world economic forum earlier this year, a world that would be open to finding a way to make the aspects of capitalism that serves the wealthiest people, also serve the poor. He calls this idea creative capitalism. You may have a different name for it. 

And this is all right. I only request that you think about those that are hungry and otherwise marginalized, and that you act where you can. Thank you. 
(applause)