TWN Info Service on UN Sustainable Development (Oct26/09)
22 October 2026
Third World Network

UN: Global hunger an "avoidable tragedy" despite sufficient food for all
Published in SUNS #10538 dated 21 October 2026 

Penang, 20 Oct (Kanaga Raja) -- Even though the world has enough food for everyone, more than a quarter of humanity struggle to get enough food, or food of adequate quality, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, has said, describing this shocking situation as being "an avoidable tragedy".

This came in his address to the 54th Plenary Session of the UN Committee on World Food Security taking place at the headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Rome, Italy on 19 October.

In his statement, the rights chief said the right to food is a fundamental human right, inextricably linked to the rights to life, water, health, social security, and work - forming a vital safety net for people worldwide.

"That right has found its way into treaties and laws, declarations and guidelines. But for too many people, it has yet to find its way onto their dinner plates," he added.

"More than a quarter of humanity struggle to get enough food, or food of adequate quality. And what makes this all the more shocking is that it is an avoidable tragedy."

The world has enough for everyone. Global food supply has risen steadily and now exceeds 3,000 calories per person per day - a historic high. Yet hunger reduction has not kept pace, Mr Turk pointed out.

"So why do so many have to get by on so little? Because too much of that abundance is swallowed up by injustice - and the denial of human rights."

Part of it disappears into economic systems that allow food to be accumulated and wasted on a massive scale, he said, noting that every day, households alone throw away more than one billion meals.

Part of the food supply is denied through discrimination and exclusion, including policies that favour large corporations over small-scale farmers, fisheries, and pastoralists, the High Commissioner said, adding that just one per cent of the world's farms operate more than 70 per cent of global farmland.

Women farmers and Indigenous Peoples, who are key to local livelihoods and sustainable agriculture, often lack government support and access to land, and far too much food is lost to the brutality of war, stolen by those who use food as a weapon, said Mr Turk.

For example, he said conflict-driven destruction and displacement are fuelling acute hunger in 12 of the 13 current hunger hotspots.

Moreover, he said restrictions on humanitarian aid and attacks on aid workers are cutting off the last lifelines.

"All these wrongs are compounded by our reckless treatment of the planet that feeds us. Millions of hectares of farmland are lost to desertification every year," he added.

"We need to come together urgently, to fix the systems and policies that starve people in a world of plenty," the rights chief stressed.

A human rights economy can help defeat hunger through social protection, fair taxation, and agricultural policies that reduce poverty, he pointed out.

"Equitable access to land, water, and seeds, and meaningful climate action, are crucial to the wellbeing of rural communities and to the health of our food systems."

Decisions affecting the right to food need to reflect the voices and needs of local communities, farmers, and civil society, and there is need to protect environmental and local human rights defenders, so their voices can be raised without fear, and heard clearly and consistently, said the High Commissioner.

He said: "We must do our utmost to ensure the rules of war are upheld, and hunger is never used as a method of warfare. Together, we can turn rights and commitments into food on people's plates. The work of this Committee can advance this critical task."

Meanwhile, in her first statement at the UN Committee on World Food Security as the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Sofia Monsalve Suarez said that she begins her mandate at a difficult moment in history.

"A combination of factors is seriously threatening food security in several parts of the world. The factor that concerns me most is the rapid increase in famine and the use of starvation as a weapon of war," she added.

While noting that chronic hunger declined in 2025, she said acute hunger has been rising steadily since 2016.

Today, populations in six countries are facing catastrophic conditions: 1.4 million people who no longer have any means of obtaining food, nine times more than in 2016; and 266 million people face acute hunger every day, in countries such as Sudan, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Yemen and Gaza.

Ms Suarez said "the return of famine and the deliberate use of starvation as a weapon of war is an unprecedented moral challenge for our generation. These crimes continue with impunity. No one is held accountable for them."

She said "they are the most abject expression of global war economies and of the geopolitical competition that has undermined the foundations of our coexistence."

Additionally, she said that the confluence of climatic, geopolitical and economic factors threatens many countries because their food systems have already been weakened by decades of neoliberal policies, excessive dependence on imports, industrial monocultures, the overexploitation of ecosystems and people, and extreme inequalities in access to the resources needed to feed oneself.

The transformations required are enormous and will have to be carried out under very adverse conditions, she suggested.

In this regard, the UN expert said that her task is to contribute to them and to support the efforts of States, local governments, the women who perform the essential work of food-related care, trade unions, and organizations of peasants, fisherfolk and Indigenous Peoples.

"At the heart of my vision is the reaffirmation of human dignity in these times of global war economies. Dignity must be foundational to the transformation of food systems, not only as a legal right but as a lived reality."

Famine in armed conflict demands a stronger framework for accountability and prevention. International human rights law complements international humanitarian law: the right to food entails positive obligations to prevent hunger and to sustain the conditions for survival, Ms Suarez pointed out.

In this context, she said there is need for better coordination among the Security Council, the CFS (Committee on World Food Security), the human rights system and other monitoring mechanisms such as the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), in order to improve early warning and anticipatory action.

The dignity and perspectives of survivors must remain central, Ms Suarez said, calling on the CFS Multi-Year Programme of Work to strengthen its focus on this issue. +