Implementing Article 43(1) (c) of the constitution; right to food in Kenya"

Abstract

Access to adequate and nutritional food is essential in sustaining human life and ensuring that people live a life of dignity.1People cannot live without food and they not only need food, but to "have access to adequate and nutritious food. The right to food is given adequate protection both nationally and internationally. It is a justiciable right in Kenya pursuant to" Articles 23 and 165 of the Constitution. To ensure "enjoyment of the right, the state is" expected to “protect, respect, promote and fulfil the right to food”.2In pursuit of these duties, the government should ensure all people in Kenya enjoy "at the very least the essential levels of the right tolfood.lThelright tolfoodlrequires positive action to be undertaken by the state in order for the right to be" actualised. The state should allocate resources and to enact laws that ensure realisation of the right. However, estimates have it that at least 16 million people in Kenya face the challenge of either lack of food or the food accessible to them does not meet the minimum nutritional standards.3 This caused the president in December 2017 to set out the Big Four Agenda which aims at “increasing manufacturing, achieving universal healthcare, expanding affordable housing and achieving 100 percent food and nutrition security.”4Despite the effort, Kenya has not achieved food security" and communities are calling upon the government and other stake holders to aid them with food donations. This "paper examines the duties of states in actualization of the right to food, discusses the normative content of the right and explores the state of the right to food in Kenya. It also analyses how the right to food has been implemented in other jurisdictions and" concludes by giving "recommendations on how the right to food can be" actualised in Kenya