Problems, policy and politics – perspectives of public health leaders on food insecurity and human rights in Australia

Abstract

Background To achieve zero hunger targets set within the United Nations’ Agenda 2030, high-income countries such as Australia must reconsider current efforts to improve food security. This study aimed to; explore perspectives from public health nutrition experts on the usefulness of drawing on the international human right to food, and associated mechanisms, to address food insecurity; identify potential roles of key stakeholders in Australia to implement a rights-based approach; and examine barriers and enablers to achieving the right to food in Australia. Methods Qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted with key informants (> 10 years professional experience). Braun and Clarke’s (2006) six-phase approach to thematic analysis was employed to analyse data, using Kingdon’s multiple streams framework (1984) to examine interactive variables which affect policy-making processes. Results Thirty interviews took place, with most participants representing academia (n = 16), majority had 10–14 years of experience (n = 12) and almost one quarter (n = 7) were in senior leadership roles. Participants believed that framing food insecurity as a human rights issue could be effective when communicating with some audiences, however alternative rhetoric is more popular and potentially more effective. Citizens, government, food industry, non-profit sector, research/tertiary and legal institutions were described as playing critical roles. Barriers to progress were identified as lack of awareness and acknowledgement of the problem, prioritisation of the private sector, lack of political will and domestic laws, and an inefficient/ineffective charitable food sector. Participants identified various enablers and opportunities for implementing a rights-based approach such as grass-roots advocacy efforts to raise awareness of the issue, integrating human rights into government frameworks and community projects and the political will to support action aligned with sustainable development. Conclusions Human rights language and mechanisms have the potential to trigger genuine commitment to addressing food insecurity however should be used with caution. Australia’s public health workforce requires increased capacity to implement a human-rights approach and framing such efforts to align with sustainable development may achieve greater political action. Trial registration Ethics approval was received from the Deakin University Human Research Ethics committee (project ID HEAG 168_2018).

A scoping review of the conceptualisations of food justice

“…If governments and communities can work together, there are new opportunities to use food justice and rights language when conveying food security information; embrace grass roots advocacy to raise awareness and contextualised understandings of the issue; create dialogue among community participants to advocate fair food policies that affect them; develop community leaders to be experts in healthy and sustainable food systems; provide resources that community participants need to succeed in such as policy-relevant scientific evidence; bring the voices of underrepresented groups into the conversation and provide resources and skills. At the policy level, opportunities exist for evaluating policy changes that document benefits and limitations, and integrated food justice and rights into government frameworks and community projects (12,55) .…”

“…The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights states 'everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and wellbeing of himself and his family, including food : : : '. Although not legally binding, many countries endorsed a human rights-based approach to economic, social and cultural rights in 1975 (12) . However, when it comes to equitable access to healthy, affordable and nutritious food, governments have predominately adopted a needs-based response, such as food relief, rather than a rights-based approach which is communityled (13) .…”

“…The root causes of food insecurity are multifactorial and tend to include material hardships and inadequate financial resources (14) . The dominant response has focused on government welfare payments and supporting emergency food relief initiatives within the charitable food sector (12,15) . Such technical fixes are unlikely to solve food insecurity challenge (16) .…”