A/HRC/13/33/Add.4 7. The right to adequate food imposes three levels of obligations on States, as elaborated by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.1 The obligation to respect existing access to adequate food requires States not to take any measures that result in preventing such access. The obligation to protect requires measures by the State to ensure that enterprises or individuals do not deprive individuals of their access to adequate food. The obligation to fulfil (facilitate) means that States must proactively engage in activities intended to strengthen people’s access to and utilization of resources and means to ensure their livelihood, including food security. Finally, whenever an individual or group is unable to enjoy the right to adequate food by the means at their disposal, States have the obligation to fulfil (provide) that right directly. 8. In addition to these obligations, the general principle of non-discrimination requires that special attention is paid to particularly vulnerable groups, which suffer from hunger and malnutrition as a result of marginalization and exploitation. In addition, States are obliged to use the maximum of their available resources, to achieve the progressive realization of the right to food. This report takes these obligations as well as the recommendations issued by the previous Special Rapporteur as its starting point. III. Situation of hunger and malnutrition in the country 9. In his report on the visit conducted in 2005, the previous Special Rapporteur on the right to food2 noted that spending on food in more than 60 per cent of Guatemalan homes did not meet minimum daily dietary requirements and that chronic child malnutrition was among the highest in the world. The Special Rapporteur ascribed these phenomena to a large extent to the inequitable distribution of wealth, high concentration of land ownership, and inadequate minimum wage in the country.3 10. In 2009, Guatemala remains a country in which wealth is distributed in a highly inequitable manner. The GINI coefficient, which measures inequality, is among the highest in Latin America (53.7)4 and almost 80 per cent of arable land is in the hands of just 2 per cent of the population; 50.9 per cent of the population are poor and 15.2 per cent are extremely poor.5 According to the Forum for Consultation and Social Participation (Instancia de consulta y participación social, INCOPAS) more than 3 million people currently suffer from hunger, which is double the number of hungry in 1991.6 The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) places the number of undernourished at 2.1 million.7 11. Poverty predominantly affects those living in rural areas, who amount to 60 per cent of the population. In addition, 74.8 per cent of the indigenous community live in poverty (compared to 36.2 per cent for the rest of the population).8 In this context, it is estimated that 16 per cent of the total population in Guatemala are undernourished.9 Moreover, 43.4 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comment No. 12 (1999) on the right to adequate food (art. 11), para. 15. Jean Ziegler was the Special Rapporteur on the right to food from 2000 to 2008. E/CN.4/2006/44/Add.1, paras. 6-14. UNDP, Human Development Report, 2009. UNDP, National Human Development Report, 2008, annex 11. Instancia de Consulta y Participacion Social (INCOPAS), “Informe de la sociedad civil: situación del derecho a la alimentación y otros derechos relativos en Guatemala”, September 2009, page 2. FAO, The State of Food Insecurity in the World, 2009. National Institute for Statistics (INE), National Survey of Living Conditions 2006 (ENCOVI 2006). FAO Statistics Division, Global Statistics Service, Food Security Indicators, Guatemala, 2008 5