The right to food, finance and national action plans

Human Rights Council (2025) The right to food, finance and national action plans : report of the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Michael Fakhri. 22 pp.

In the present report, the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Michael Fakhri, provides a way to develop national right-to-food action plans within existing budgets that can transform food systems and progressively realize the right to food. 

In the light of the global debt crisis, high inflation and high food prices, many countries are faced with the impossible choice of either feeding people or servicing debt. Using public funds to ensure that people have access to adequate food can cause a Government to fall into arrears, worsening financial shocks; servicing debt instead leads to more hunger and malnutrition. 

This means that the current international system of finance resolutely impedes the ability of Governments to meet their obligations with regard to the right to food. In the report, the Special Rapporteur suggests how significant improvements in food systems – and the conditions for transformation – could be achieved by redesigning public budgets.