Human Rights Mainstreaming in the FAO

The ulti­mate goal of the Food and Agri­culture Organi­zation (FAO) is to ensure ade­quate nut­rition for all people world­wide. In order to a­chieve this aim, the FAO even set up an inter­nal unit in 2006 to firmly estab­lish the so-called right to food within the orga­nisation.

Despite these ef­forts, the FAO still faces great diffi­culties in en­suring the right to ade­quate food. Carolin Anthes has add­ressed this prob­lem in her dis­serta­tion entitled "Insti­tutio­nal Road­blocks to Hu­man Rights Main­strea­ming in the FAO - A Tale of Silo Cul­ture in the Uni­ted Na­tions Sys­tem". She exa­mines in­stitu­tional factors that im­pede a firm estab­lish­ment of the right to food. For this pur­pose, the resear­cher conduc­ted inter­views with FAO emplo­yees and ob­served the 43rd ple­nary ses­sion of the Com­mittee on World Food Se­curity.

In her study, Carolin Anthes iden­tifies a "silo culture" at va­rious levels within the UN organi­sation. Different de­part­ments operate strictly sepa­rated from each other, which comp­licates the establish­ment of a right to food app­roach within the FAO. Coo­pera­tion bet­ween dif­ferent UN autho­rities and the rep­resen­tations of the in­divi­dual mem­ber states is also affec­ted by this silo culture. In ad­dition, so-called "mental silos" them­selves occur on a per­sonal level, ma­king the work within the FAO more comp­licated.

The book Insti­tutional Road­blocks to Hu­man Rights Main­streaming in the FAO was pub­lished by Springer VS. It is part of the series Studien des Leibniz-Instituts Hes­sische Stiftung Friedens- und Konflikt­forschung.