A/RES/68/177 The right to food in the World 2013, the number of hungry people in the world remains unacceptably high and the vast majority of hungry people live in developing countries; 6. Expresses its concern that women and girls are disproportionately affected by hunger, food and nutrition 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; Encourages all States to take action to address gender inequality and 7. discrimination against women, in particular where they contribute to the malnutrition of women and girls, including measures to ensure the full and equal realization of the right to food and ensuring 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; Encourages the Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights Council on the 8. right to food to continue mainstreaming a gender perspective in the fulfilment of his 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 to integrate a gender perspective into their relevant policies, programmes and activities; Reaffirms the need to ensure that programmes delivering safe and 9. nutritious food are inclusive of and accessible to persons with disabilities; 10. Calls upon all States and, if appropriate, relevant international organizations to take measures and support programmes which are aimed at combating undernutrition in mothers, in particular during pregnancy, and children and the irreversible effects of chronic undernutrition in early childhood, in particular from birth to the age of 2 years; 11. 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; 12. Recognizes the advances reached 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; 13. Stresses that improving access to productive resources and public investment in rural development are essential for eradicating hunger and poverty, in particular in developing countries, including through the promotion of investments, including private investments, in appropriate small-scale irrigation and water management technologies in order to reduce vulnerability to droughts; 14. 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 smallscale fishers to the local food security of coastal communities; 15. Also recognizes that 80 per cent of hungry people live in rural areas and 50 per cent are small-scale farm-holders 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 4/8