22 THE RIGHTS TO FOOD AND WATER The obligation to protect implies that states must ensure that individuals and companies do not deprive people of permanent access to adequate food and safe drinking water. The government must establish bodies to investigate and provide effective remedies if rights are violated. Violations of the obligation to protect occur if the government does not intervene when a third party – for example, a powerful individual, evicts people from their land. CESCR has observed that the plight of the indigenous population in Chaco, Paraguay –- expelled from their traditional land by cattle ranchers or industrial enterprises – as well as the estimated 200,000 landless mestizo peasant families, raises concern in this regard.46 The obligation to protect would not be met if the government failed to take appropriate action when a company diminished or polluted a community’s water supply. Thus states must guarantee security of land tenure and other productive resources, and guarantee the traditional rights of indigenous communities regarding their natural resources as against violation by others. The obligation to fulfil requires that governments take positive steps to ensure initially the satisfaction of, at the very least, minimum essential levels of the rights to food and to water.47 The government must take action to identify vulnerable groups and to adopt and implement a national strategy which has the active participation of minorities and indigenous communities. The strategy should include appropriate decentralization which should be achieved through social programmes, safety nets and international assistance. It should give particular attention to the need to prevent discrimination in access to food or resources for food, as well as water. The strategy should therefore include special legislation to protect the land rights of indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities,48 and guarantee full and equal access to economic resources, particularly for women.49 The obligation to fulfil the right to water includes adopting a national water strategy and plan of action to realize this right, ensuring that water services are affordable for all, and facilitating improved and sustainable access to water, particularly in rural and deprived urban areas.50 International cooperation CESCR General Comments 12 and 15 succinctly spell out that state parties should recognize the essential role of international assistance and cooperation and comply with their commitment to take joint and separate action to achieve the full realization of the rights to food and water. States are obliged to respect the rights to food and water of persons living in other states; and they must guarantee that their own policies do not contribute to violations of the right to adequate food in other countries 51 or to safe drinking water.52 They have the duty to promote and help other states (through international assistance and cooperation) to implement the right to food and water. Notably, international assistance should be provided in a manner that is culturally appropriate.53