A/HRC/12/31* page 4 I. INTRODUCTION 1. The Special Rapporteur on the right to food submitted his first report on the global food crisis (A/HRC/9/23) in September 2008. The present report is submitted in accordance with Human Rights Council resolution 9/6 on the follow-up to the seventh special session of the Council on the negative impact of the worsening of the world food crisis on the realization of the right to food for all, adopted by the Council at its ninth session. In the report,1 the Special Rapporteur summarizes the efforts that have been made since by Governments and international agencies to build resilience against the risk of future crises. The Special Rapporteur thanks all Governments that submitted responses to the questionnaire that he addressed to them, on 27 January 2009.2 He also expresses thanks for the submissions received from additional sources. The inquiry was divided into four themes. The Special Rapporteur first describes the current unfolding of the global food crisis: the crisis is not over, it is having devastating consequences, and it is further aggravated by the financial, economic, and ecological crises we are currently witnessing. Next, he examines the role of the right to food in addressing the global food crisis, with a focus on the national level. He then analyses the impact of the renewed interest in agriculture and the choices that Governments are confronted with in this area, and considers the strengthening of social protection as a means to shield the poorest segments of the population from the impact of high food prices. While both these questions are primarily matters to be addressed through policies adopted at the national level, the Special Rapporteur argues for the need to support these efforts more actively by certain initiatives that could be adopted at the international level. He then considers possibilities for the regulation of the markets for agricultural commodities; in particular, he enquires how the volatility of prices of agricultural commodities, which discourages investment and production, and leads to higher prices for buyers of food, could be combated. Lastly, he examines the case for strengthening the political will to tackle hunger and acute malnutrition effectively by improving global governance. He concludes with a set of recommendations for the Council. 2. To date, we have failed to tackle hunger and acute malnutrition decisively. There are five reasons for this failure: (a) an almost exclusive focus on increasing agricultural production instead of the adoption of a more holistic view about the causes of food insecurity; (b) a failure 1 Owing to space limitations, the present report does not include a number of data and references, or country-specific examples, which are available in the background note to the report at the address http://www.2.ohchr.org/english/issues/food/index/htm. 2 Replies have been received from Afghanistan, Algeria, Belarus, Brazil, Colombia, Denmark, Ecuador, El Salvador, Finland, France, Greece, Guatemala, Iraq, Ireland, Jamaica, Japan, Mexico, Mongolia, Oman, Portugal, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, the Syrian Arab Republic, Thailand, Togo, Turkey and Uganda.