A/HRC/RES/43/11 Conference on Population and Development prescribed that measures should be taken to strengthen food, nutrition and agricultural policies and programmes, 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, sufficient 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 its deep concern that The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2019: Safeguarding against economic slowdowns and downturns1 confirmed a rise in world hunger for a third year in a row, that there were 821 million chronically undernourished people in the world in 2019, and that one in nine people in the world now faces hunger; 4. Considers it intolerable that, as estimated by the United Nations Children’s Fund, nearly half of all deaths of children under the age of 5 are attributable to undernutrition, which puts children at greater risk of dying from common infections, increases the frequency and severity of such infections, and delays recovery; 5. Expresses its great concern that, while women contribute more than 50 per cent of the food produced worldwide, they also account for 70 per cent of the world’s hungry, that women and girls are disproportionately affected by hunger, food 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. Encourages all States to mainstream a gender perspective in food security programmes and to take action to address de jure and de facto gender inequality and discrimination against women, in particular where such inequality and discrimination contribute to the malnutrition of women and girls, including by taking measures to ensure the full and equal realization of the right to food and ensuring that women and girls have equal access to social protection and resources, including income, land and water, and their ownership, and full and equal access to health care, education, science and technology, to enable them to feed themselves and their families, and in this regard stresses the need to empower women and to strengthen their role in decision-making; 7. Encourages the Special Rapporteur on the right to food to continue to mainstream a gender perspective in the fulfilment of her 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 insecurity to integrate and effectively implement a gender perspective in their relevant policies, programmes and activities regarding access to food; 8. Stresses that improving access to productive resources and responsible public investment in rural development, taking into consideration the Principles for Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Systems, as endorsed by the Committee on World Food Security, is essential for eradicating hunger and poverty, in particular in developing countries, including through the promotion of investment, including private investment, in appropriate small-scale irrigation and water management technologies in order to reduce vulnerability to droughts and to tackle water scarcity; 9. Recognizes the importance of smallholder and family farmers and peasants in developing countries, including women and local and indigenous communities, in ensuring food security, reducing poverty and preserving ecosystems, and the need to assist their development; 1 Issued by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the World Food Programme and the World Health Organization. 3