The challenges of post-natural disaster preparedness and most specifically the inadequacy of food security is the result of negligence of elites. There are enough reasons to be fearful. The much proclaimed promise of government in rebuilding lives while ensuring adequate standard of living has not entailed right to food, which is alarming.
Nepal is party to International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) since 1991, and is making progress towards incorporating the right to food into its national legislation. Both the Interim Constitution 2007 and the Three Year Interim Plan recognize food sovereignty and food security as basic rights; however, there is significant gap in ensuring food security.The nature of the legal obligations of States parties is set out in Article 2 of the ICESCR. The Committee on ESCR in General Comment No. 12 also defines the obligations that state parties have to fulfill in order to implement the right to adequate food at the national level.
While all the rights under the Covenant are meant to be achieved through progressive realization, states have minimum core obligations which are of immediate effect. The Covenant requires that states take necessary steps to ensure that everyone is free from hunger and can enjoy the right to adequate food as soon as possible. But the states have a margin of discretion in choosing the ways and means of implementing the right. While discharging the obligation, a state can take help of international organizations.
WFP came to Nepal to meet its strategic goals: providing food aid to save lives in emergency situations and improving the nutrition and quality of life of the most vulnerable people at critical times.
WFP is well placed to play a vital role in the continuum from emergency relief to development. It is expected to give priority to disaster prevention, preparedness, mitigation and post-disaster rehabilitation. In carrying out its mandate, WFP usually concentrates on what it is best suited to do with the resources available, as cost-effectively as possible. However, under no condition should substandard food reach anyone's belly.
Scholars like Marks and Clapham hold that mass starvation is not caused by climatic crises or natural disasters. It is the result of social systems that make people vulnerable to the effects of those crises. Starvation is ultimately a policy option, rather than a natural disaster.
Likewise, Amartya Sen also says that there is need to focus on the "role of human agency in causing and sustaining starvation; the starvation not due to lack of availability, but rather accessibility/entitlements." Mike Davis emphasizes that starvation has a human-made dimension and is never simply a natural disaster. The problem is often high prices rather than the scarcity of food. This rings true in Nepal's context as the government is apathetic to people and UN agency distributes rotten rice.
I want to know what the government is doing to ensure people's right to food and how it plans to make intergovernmental bodies accountable.
A commoner of this country, more than ever, is now vulnerable to food scarcity. Will their voices demanding adequate food be heard in the clamor of national and international actors? Will there be focus on social measures that are so crucial for the underprivileged? Will the 'development' be inclusive and for all? In addition, my greatest fear is the upcoming monsoon and lack of government preparedness.
Due to lack of promptness and effective coordination, Nepal has been criticized by the donor community. It is high time we stopped worrying about images of Nepalis as beggars. Is protecting an image more important than trying to alter the reality of shortage, corruption and visionless leadership? Just by appealing to the international community for funding support, does our responsibility end and the reality change?
The author is Executive Director at INHURED International
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