The National Coordinator of Sierra Leone Network on the Right to Food (SiLNoRF), Mohamed S. Conteh, on Tuesday 26 June 2018, said about 3 million people in Sierra Leone are food insecure, representing 49.8% of the population.
The Coordinator made this statement during a multi stakeholder’s engagement on the implementation and monitoring of the FAO voluntary guidelines on the right to food and nutrition at the Hotel Cabenda on Signal Hill Road, in Freetown.
These voluntary guidelines have taken into account relevant international instruments, in particular those instruments in which the progressive realization of the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living, including adequate food, is enshrined. Among the instruments is the universal declaration of human right, international covenant on economic, social and cultural right amongst others.
Conteh mentioned that more than 850 million people worldwide suffer from hunger and under nourishment, noting that Sierra Leone has ratified various international, regional and national instruments, which oblige the State to fulfill the right to food.
He said following the Contonou declaration of the African Network on the Right to Food (ANoRF) in 2008, The SiLNoRF was established in the same year as a national right to food platform that is linked to the wider African network.
“SiLNoRF has made tremendous progress toward promoting the right to food agenda by establishing and capacitating community –based groups network and coalition; holding extensive consultations and engagement with key stakeholders to identify priorities for the development of sustainable models for evidence based advocacy.” He said Sierra Leoneans should come together to end mal nutrition and hunger.
According to the Assistant FAO Country Representative, Joseph Brima, they were pushing for the right to food and nutrition to form part of the Sierra Leone Constitution. He underscored, “Food security is a very important issue. We are still grappling with it. Government has come and gone but yet we are struggling with it.” He said Sierra Leone has not be able to produce enough food for its citizenry, adding that over $300 million USD is spent annually on the importation of rice.
Giving a brief presentation on the right to food, the RM&E Officer SiLNoRF, Joseph Saffa, noted that the right to adequate food is realized when every women, man and child has physical and economic access at all times to adequate food or means for its procurement. He added that the right to food has four main legal contents, which are adequacy, availability, accessibility and sustainability.
MJB/26/6/18
Mohamed J. Bah
Wednesday June 27, 2018.
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