A/HRC/RES/40/7 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. Recognizes the importance of smallholder and subsistence 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; 8. 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; 9. Reaffirms the need to ensure that programmes delivering safe, sufficient, nutritious and culturally accepted food are inclusive and accessible to persons with disabilities; 10. Encourages States to promote the conditions for everyone to be free from hunger and, as soon as possible, to enjoy fully the right to food, and, where appropriate, to consider establishing appropriate institutional mechanisms and adopting national plans to combat hunger; 11. Recognizes the advances made through South-South cooperation in developing countries and regions in connection with food security and the development of agricultural production for the full realization of the right to food; 12. Also recognizes the importance of traditional sustainable agricultural practices, inter alia, traditional seed supply systems, including for many indigenous peoples and local communities; 13. Stresses that the primary responsibility of States is to promote and protect the right to food, and that the international community should provide, through a coordinated response and upon request, international cooperation in support of national and regional efforts by providing the assistance necessary to increase food production and access to food, particularly through agricultural development assistance, the transfer of technology, food crop rehabilitation assistance and food aid, achieving food security, with special attention paid to the specific needs of women and girls, and promoting support for the development of adapted technologies, research on rural advisory services and support for access to financing services, and to ensure support for the establishment of secure land tenure systems; 14. Calls upon States, individually and through international cooperation and assistance, relevant multilateral institutions and other relevant stakeholders to take all the measures necessary to ensure the realization of the right to food as an essential human rights objective, and to consider reviewing any policy or measure that could have a negative impact on the realization of the right to food, particularly the right of everyone to be free from hunger, before instituting such a policy or measure; 15. Recalls the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and acknowledges that many indigenous organizations and representatives of indigenous peoples have expressed in different forums their deep concern over the obstacles and 4