By Andrew Percy
The IGP's Social Prosperity Network has always been strongly aligned with the Right to Food campaign, as food is one of the seven Universal Basic Services (UBS) that are essential to prosperity.
Building on the success of the Mater Foundation’s amendment of the Geneva constitution to include a Right to Food, the IGP has been directly involved in supporting the next step: a European Citizens Initiative (ECI) for the right to food: Good food for all.
Right to Food ECI launches in Rome
In June, we attended the drafting session in Geneva and were a signatory to the founding of the ECI. And last month in Rome, to coincide with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) 52nd session of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), the ECI was officially launched.
On behalf of the IGP, I attended both the FAO conference and the ECI launch in Rome's Town Hall. Everyone I met was clear eyed about the difficulties of making substantial progress, both at the UN and at the EU levels. In the side event on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) we heard from representatives from Malawi, Kenya and Namibia about their heroic efforts to progress rights to land and the implementation of government regulations needed to make a Right to Food real.
Hilal Elver, former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, stated that "75 years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and almost 60 years after the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, bringing the right to food into European legislative process is long overdue. It's a short-sighted and unfortunate reality that neither the European Social Charter nor individual European constitutions recognize this right."
At the EU level we have to face the reality that no ECI to date has resulted in legislation. The End the Cage Age came close and was debated by the EU Parliament but the Commission has so far failed to take it any further. But we have to keep pushing on all the doors if we are to make progress anywhere.
Food is a critically important part of UBS and we are pleased that Mater Foundation has signed up as an IGP Prosperity Partner to advance research on how Switzerland’s social security system can incorporate the principles of UBS. Working on the frontline of adaptation for the 21st century may be difficult today but building the foundations for a more prosperity society in the future has its own rewards.
In 2025 the IGP's Social Prosperity Network will be convening forums around the UK to bring together practitioner organizations on all of the Universal Basic Services to reinforce local networks and highlight the cascading benefits of working together across services - stay tuned for more details.
Andrew Percy is the IGP's Co-lead for the Social Prosperity Network.
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