A/HRC/19/59 B. The challenge of sustainability 15. Assessments of these various nutrition promotion initiatives and the projects under the umbrella of the SUN initiative fall outside the scope of the present report. The increasing international profile of nutrition should be welcomed. It is positive too that SUN acknowledges the need for efforts to scale up nutrition to be driven by national authorities with a cross-sectoral approach, and that it brings together commitment and support from developing country Governments, donors, civil society, development agencies and the private sector. In providing assistance however, these actors must not overlook the entitlements that have been established under international law for women, children, minorities, refugees and internally displaced persons, and other groups that may be subjected to marginalization and discrimination. The Special Rapporteur, while welcoming the progress made through SUN, calls for an explicit alignment of its initiatives with human rights, including the right to food. A number of observations should be made in this regard. 16. First, it is troubling that the 1981 International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes27 and subsequent World Health Assembly (WHA) resolutions remain underenforced, despite the wide recognition that exclusive breastfeeding for the six first months and continued breastfeeding, combined with safe and adequate complementary foods, up to 2 years old or beyond is the optimal way of feeding infants, and reduces the risk of obesity and NCDs later in life.28 Countries committed to scaling up nutrition should begin by regulating the marketing of commercial infant formula and other breast-milk substitutes, in accordance with WHA resolution 63.23, and by implementing the full set of WHO recommendations on the marketing of breast-milk substitutes and of foods and nonalcoholic beverages to children, in accordance with WHA resolution 63.14. 17. Second, the focus on pregnant and lactating women and infants in some recent nutrition initiatives, while understandable, should not lessen the need to address the nutritional needs of others, including children, women who are not pregnant or lactating, adolescents and older persons. The right to adequate food, which includes adequate nutrition, is a universal right guaranteed to all. This pleads in favour of broad-based national strategies for the realization of the right to food that address the full range of factors causing malnutrition, rather than narrowly focused initiatives that address the specific needs of a child‘s development between conception and the second birthday. 18. Third, interventions aimed at improving nutrition and targeting pregnant or lactating women and children under 2 years old, while vital, do not substitute for addressing the structural causes of undernutrition or inadequate diets. The Special Rapporteur noted previously that chief among these structural causes are inequitable food systems that are not sufficiently inclusive of the poorest, small-scale farmers and that do not reduce rural poverty;29 and the priority given to monocropping of certain staples over more diverse farming systems that would help to ensure more adequate diets.30 The violations of women‘s rights, gender inequality and the lack of women‘s empowerment are another major factor explaining poor nutritional outcomes. Improving women‘s access to productive resources,31 allowing women to make decisions regarding the household 27 28 29 30 31 10 Adopted by WHA in its resolution 34.22. See the Political Declaration of the High-level Meeting of the General Assembly on the Prevention and Control of Non-communicable Diseases (General Assembly resolution 66/2, annex, para. 43 (i)). A/HRC/13/33 and A/66/262 (food chains), A/65/281 (access to land), A/64/170 (seed policies). A/HRC/16/49, paras. 26-27. See FAO, The State of Food and Agriculture 2010-11: Women in Agriculture – Closing the gender gap for development (Rome, 2011); closing the gender gap in agriculture would increase agricultural output by 2.5-4 per cent, thus reducing poverty and hunger (p. vi).