A/HRC/30/55 working in rural areas. They also stressed that the draft declaration was provided through informal consultations and collaboration through views from the first session of the working group held by the Council. A number of States noted that there was a need for delegations to come together to find a consensus on the text of the draft declaration and one State argued that this should be based on the principle of international solidarity. Many States congratulated the Chair-Rapporteur on her re-election and thanked her for her ongoing work on the draft declaration. 31. A number of NGOs highlighted their support for the new text of the draft declaration, noting they were satisfied with the new length and scope of the draft text. They welcomed the inclusion of civil and political rights and their application to the specific needs and realities of peasants. They welcomed the recognition of important rights, such as the right to land, the right to seed or the right to biological diversity, and noted that those so-called “new” rights were already agreed upon in other international instruments and that at one point all rights had been considered new. They also welcomed the inclusion of specific State obligations for each article and a general reference to extraterritorial obligations and non-State actors. Several NGOs noted that an effort had been made to use, as much as possible, agreed language and hoped that this would provide a more suitable basis for the negotiations and help all States to engage constructively. Furthermore, they recalled the importance of the declaration to better protect the rights and improve the livelihoods of millions of peasants, fisherfolk, pastoralists, nomads and others peoples working in rural areas who were victims of multiple forms of discrimination and human rights violations. They also emphasized that the adoption of the declaration would ultimately reinforce food security and food sovereignty at the global level, and thus benefit all humanity. 32. The participants agreed that there was a need to improve the situation of peasants and other people working in rural areas. In particular, some participants noted that extreme poverty, hunger and malnutrition were concentrated in rural areas, despite peasants’ substantial contribution to food security and food sovereignty. A number of participants also highlighted that 75–80 per cent of people affected by hunger and malnutrition were people working in rural areas and that peasants experienced discrimination in many forms. Participants also argued that women were especially vulnerable due to factors such as age, gender, marital status, indigenous and peasant identity. It was further noted that other challenges facing peasants included the denial of their means of livelihood, and their ability to control their own means of production and to set market prices for their products. The participants argued that those issues were detrimental to the livelihoods of peasants and other people working in rural areas. 33. A number of delegations and participants noted that the rights under discussion already existed as civil, political, economic, social and cultural human rights. They noted that economic, social and cultural rights such as the right to food, health, water, and education were regularly denied because States had often underinvested in facilities for peasant communities. They also noted that civil and political rights were denied because peasants who organized protests were often subjected to imprisonment, detention, laws and government policies that were used to limit their freedom of expression and association. 34. Some participants noted their support for the right to water and the need to widen the scope to include water used in agricultural production. They argued that, in developed countries, that right was already available, but it was being denied to small-scale famers operating in developing countries. Other States argued that further analysis was needed of the elaboration of already agreed international language in relation to the right to water and sanitation. 35. A number of participants highlighted the various forms of discrimination faced by peasant women, owing to the lack of education available to women working in rural areas. 10