A/RES/72/173 The right to food 10. Stresses that the primary responsibility of States is to promote and protect the right to food and that the international community should provide, through a coordinated response and upon request, international cooperation in support of national and regional efforts by providing the assistance necessary to increase food production and access to food, including through agricultural development assistance, the transfer of technology, food crop rehabilitation assistance and food aid, ensuring food security, with special attention to the specific needs of women and girls, and promoting innovation, support for the development of adapted technologies, research on rural advisory services and support for access to financing services, and ensure support for the establishment of secure land tenure systems; 11. Calls upon all States and, if appropriate, relevant international organizations to take measures and support programmes that are aimed at combating undernutrition in mothers, in particular during pregnancy, and in children, and the irreversible effects of chronic undernutrition in early childhood, in particular from birth to the age of 2 years; 12. Also calls upon all States and, where appropriate, relevant international organizations to implement policies and programmes to reduce and eliminate preventable mortality and morbidity, as a result of malnutrition, of children under 5 years of age, and in this regard urges States to disseminate the technical guidance prepared by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, in collaboration with the World Health Organization, 13 and to apply it, as appropriate, in the design, implementation, evaluation and monitoring of laws, policies, programmes, budgets and mechanisms for remedy and redress aimed at eliminating preventable mortality and morbidity of children under 5 years of age; 13. Encourages all States to take steps, with a view to progressively achieving the full realization of the right to food, including steps to promote the conditions for everyone to be free from hunger and, as soon as possible, to enjoy fully the right to food, and to create and adopt national plans to combat hunger; 14. Recognizes the advances made through South-South cooperation in developing countries and regions in connection with food security and the development of agricultural production for the full realization of the right to food; 15. Stresses that improving access to productive resources and public investment in rural development is essential for eradicating hunger and poverty, in particular in developing countries, including through the promotion of investment, including private investment, in appropriate small-scale irrigation and water management technologies in order to reduce vulnerability to droughts and to tackle water scarcity; 16. Recognizes the critical contribution made by the fisheries sector to the realization of the right to food and to food security and the contribution of small-scale fishers to the local food security of coastal communities; 17. Also recognizes that 70 per cent of hungry people live in rural areas, where nearly half a billion family farmers are located, and that these people are especially vulnerable to food insecurity, given the increasing cost of inputs and the fall in farm incomes; that access to land, water, seeds and other natural resources is an increasing challenge for poor producers; that sustainable and gender-sensitive agricultural policies are important tools for promoting land and agrarian reform, rural credit and insurance, technical assistance and other associated measures to achieve food security and rural development; and that support by States for small farmers, fishing __________________ 13 6/10 A/HRC/27/31; see also Human Rights Council resolution 33/11 (see Official Records of the General Assembly, Seventy-first Session, Supplement No. 53A and corrigendum (A/71/53/Add.1 and A/71/53/Add.1/Corr.1), chap. II). 17-22986