Policy Solutions to Realize the Right to Food of Children in Colombia: An Integrative Approach

The traditional analysis of hunger focuses on food supply. Nonetheless, several scholars and human rights practitioners prove this analysis defective. However, many public policies at the national and local level are still based on a reductionist food supply and food security approach. By means of a literature review, a review of the legal framework on the right to food as well as a thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with experts, this thesis examines the public policy obstacles to overcome early malnutrition and the features that such public policies need to be effective. The main findings are that obstacles in realizing the right to food are linked to outsourcing states’ obligations towards the right to food, corruption derived from outsourcing aid, centralization of food supplies, pricing, and decision-making. Results also indicate links between these obstacles and the food-security-centered approach to public policy that tends to understand the resolution of hunger as charity rather than a legal obligation of states under international human rights law. By the same token, the thesis highlights how policies can be effective as long as they are based on an understanding of food as a process and the right to food as the entitlement to that process. That is, beyond food security, which concerns household/individual supply, the right to food entails the dignified conditions for the groups that produce, transform and exchange food. Finally, the thesis proves that the model ‘Food Process and Standards of Social Realization of the Right to Food’ is a useful tool in developing policy guidelines to: (i) uphold the rights of individuals, homes, communities, and ensure the country to sustainably procure adequate food and decide the system to do so; and (ii) redress the elements of the food process that are infringed by each of the obstacles identified.