Summary
In February 1990, the Executive Branch commissioned the National Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA) to develop a food security program designed to help the poor maintain small vegetable gardens to produce food for their own consumption. On August 3, 1990, the INTA Board of Directors issued Resolution 239 approving the Pro-Huerta Program.
In the 1990s the World Bank granted Argentina a special structural adjustment loan that included a safeguard condition according to which the borrower’s overall budget for certain social programs would be maintained intact; the Pro Huerta social program was listed among them. However, in 1999, the budget for the Pro-Huerta Program suffered a nearly 65 percent reduction which threatened the right to food of its beneficiaries.
In June 1999, with Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales as counsel, a group of 418 beneficiaries issued a complaint before the Sub-regional Office of the World Bank in Buenos Aires stating that the budget cut to the Pro-Huerta program constituted a serious violation of the terms and conditions on which the Bank approved the loan, as well as of the Bank’s policies and legal procedures. Moreover, the claimants argued the breach violated General Comment No. 12 on the right to adequate food adopted by Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights under Article 11. Due to the inaction of the World Bank’s management, a claim was also presented before the Inspection Panel that blamed local officials of the Bank for failure to deal with the harm to the project that the budgetary reductions could cause and demanded that the Panel delay the pending loan payments to Argentina until the government restored adequate funding.
In December 1999 the Inspection Panel visited the country and released a report which affirmed its power to consider petitions tied to structural adjustment policies and recognized that beneficiaries had standing as affected persons.
Keywords: Report and Recommendation on Request for Inspection, Re: Argentina – Special Structural Adjustment Loan 4405-AR (Pro-Huerta Case), Adequate Standard of Living, Agricultural and Rural Issues, Food Rights, International Financial Institutions