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Adopt a national strategy on the human right to adequate food
Centre for Community Development in Zimbabwe (CCDZ)
October 07, 2008

The Centre for Community Development in Zimbabwe (CCDZ) urges the soon to be installed Government of National Unity to adopt a national strategy on the human right to adequate food. The people of Zimbabwe are facing critical food shortages to the extent that the majority poor especially in the countryside are surviving on roots and wild fruits such as hacha/chakata and matamba (amakhemesvani).

If the GNU is to be taken seriously by the starving masses, the right to adequate food must be restored along with other freedoms that will assist in securing not only the right to food but also restore a wide range of civil and political liberties. CCDZ urges politicians to cringe at the dire food insecurity situation in the country and take urgent steps to address people's grievances. We urge the Mugabe and Tsvangirai-led GNU to take urgent steps for the realisation of food security in the country. As soon as the new government is installed, it must prioritise restoring Zimbabwe's status as the "breadbasket of Southern Africa".

The Government of Zimbabwe has the primary responsibility to respect, protect and fulfill the people's right to adequate food. The people of Zimbabwe are not enjoying the right to food not solely because of the vagaries of nature such as drought but because of ill-conceived government policies as well as banning of humanitarian/relief agencies that provide food aid. Misplaced national pride has put the government in a state of denial on the prevailing food insecurity situation in the country.

The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) to which Zimbabwe is a State Party, spells out the State obligations on the human right to adequate food. The Government of Zimbabwe is violating the human right to food by failing to take steps as expeditiously as possible 'to the maximum of its available resources" to ensure that the people have got access to adequate food. As noted by Asbjorn Eide, former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Food:

"The very purpose of the State-and a Government-should be to ensure the full realization of all human rights (including the right to adequate food) for everyone under its jurisdiction."

CCDZ urges the following:

• Adoption of a National Strategy to ensure food and nutrition security for all the people of Zimbabwe
• Setting verifiable targets and benchmarks for subsequent monitoring and accountability purposes
• Adoption of legislation and corresponding accountability and remedy mechanisms including reforming some abusive food distribution institutions as key instruments in the implementation of the national strategy
• Setting up all-inclusive and non-discriminatory food distribution teams to be urgently dispatched to provinces and districts to measure the levels of vulnerability and food needs of the masses.
• Developing monitoring mechanisms to gauge progress towards targets and benchmarks and compliance on the right to adequate food.

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