A/HRC/19/2 Recognizing the need to increase sustainable investment in agriculture from all relevant sources for the realization of the right to food, 1. Reaffirms that hunger constitutes an outrage and a violation of human dignity and therefore requires the adoption of urgent measures at the national, regional and international levels for its elimination; 2. Also reaffirms the right of everyone to have access to safe and nutritious food, consistent with the right to adequate food and the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger so as to be able to fully develop and maintain his or her physical and mental capacities; 3. Expresses grave concern at the evolution of the world food crisis, which has been further aggravated by the world economic and financial crisis and seriously undermines the realization of the right to food for all, especially for one sixth of the world population, mainly in developing and least developed countries, who suffer from hunger, malnutrition and food insecurity; 4. Considers it intolerable that, according to an estimation by the United Nations Children’s Fund, more than one third of the children who die every year before the age of 5 years do so from hunger-related illness, and that, according to an estimation by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the number of people who are undernourished is nine hundred and twenty five million worldwide, and that there is an additional one billion people suffering from serious malnutrition, including as a result of the global food crisis, even though, according to the latter organization, the planet could produce enough food to feed twelve billion people; 5. Expresses its concern that women and girls are disproportionately affected by hunger, food and nutrition insecurity and poverty, in part as a result of gender inequality and discrimination, that in many countries girls are twice as likely as boys to die from malnutrition and preventable childhood diseases, and that it is estimated that almost twice as many women as men suffer from malnutrition; 6. Recognizes the importance of smallholder farmers in developing countries, including women and local and indigenous communities, in ensuring food and nutrition security, reducing poverty and preserving ecosystems, and the need to assist their development; 7. Encourages all States to take action to address gender inequality and discrimination against women, in particular where it contributes to the malnutrition of women and girls, including measures to ensure the full and equal realization of the right to food and ensuring that women have equal access to resources, including income, land and water and their ownership, as well as full and equal access to education, science and technology, to enable them to feed themselves and their families; 8. Stresses the need to guarantee fair and non-discriminatory access to land rights for smallholders, traditional farmers and their organizations, including, in particular, rural women and vulnerable groups; 9. Encourages the Special Rapporteur on the right to food to ensure the mainstreaming of a gender perspective in the fulfilment of his mandate, and encourages the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and all other United Nations bodies and mechanisms that address the right to food and food and nutrition insecurity to integrate into and effectively implement a gender perspective and a human rights perspective in their relevant policies, programmes and activities regarding access to food; 10. Reaffirms the need to ensure that programmes delivering safe and nutritious food are inclusive and accessible to persons with disabilities; GE.13-14768 23