The right to food A/RES/72/173 1. Reaffirms that hunger constitutes an outrage and a violation of human dignity and therefore requires the adoption of urgent measures at the national, regional and international levels for its elimination; 2. Also reaffirms the right of everyone to have access to safe, sufficient and nutritious food, consistent with the right to adequate food and the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger, so as to be able to fully develop and maintain his or her physical and mental capacities; 3. Considers it intolerable that, as estimated by the United Nations Children’s Fund, up to 45 per cent of the children who die every year before the age of 5 die from undernutrition and hunger-related illness and that, as estimated by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, about 815 million people in the world suffer from chronic hunger owing to the lack of sufficient food for the conduct of an active and healthy life, including as one of the effects derived from food insecurity, while, according to the latter organization, the planet could produce enough food to feed everyone around the world; 4. Expresses its concern at the fact that the effects created by the world food crisis still continue to have serious consequences for the poorest and most vulnerable people, particularly in developing countries, which have been further aggravated by the impacts of the world financial and economic crisis, and at the particular effects of the crisis on many net food-importing countries, especially least developed countries; 5. Expresses its deep concern that, according to the report of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations entitled The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2017, the number of hungry people in the world is unacceptably high and the vast majority of hungry people live in developing countries; 6. Also expresses its deep concern that, while women contribute more than 50 per cent of the food produced worldwide, they also account for 70 per cent of the world’s hungry, that women and girls are disproportionately affected by hunger, food insecurity and poverty, in part as a result of gender inequality and discrimination, that in many countries girls are twice as likely as boys to die from malnutrition and preventable childhood diseases, and that it is estimated that almost twice as many women as men suffer from malnutrition; 7. Encourages all States to mainstream a gender perspective in food security programmes and to take action to address de jure and de facto gender inequality and discrimination against women, in particular when they contribute to the malnutrition of women and girls, including measures to ensure the full and equal realization of the right to food and that women have equal access to resources, including income, land and water and their ownership and agricultural inputs, as well as full and equal access to health care, education, science and technology, to enable them to feed themselves and their families, and in this regard stresses the need to empower women and strengthen their role in decision-making; 8. Encourages the Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights Council on the right to food to continue to mainstream a gender perspective in the fulfilment of her mandate, and encourages the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and all other United Nations bodies and mechanisms addressing the right to food and food insecurity and malnutrition to continue to integrate a gender perspective into their relevant policies, programmes and activities; 9. Reaffirms the need to ensure that programmes delivering safe and nutritious food are inclusive of and accessible to persons with disabilities; 17-22986 5/10