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At a time when the number of hungry around the globe appears to be on the rise, several countries are turning to a rights-based approach, grounded in the human right to food, to address hunger and malnutrition within their borders. While Latin America has been leading this trend, numerous countries in Eastern and Southern Africa have been adopting constitutional provisions as well as national frameworks, strategies, policies and programmes aimed at the progressive realization of the right to food. This report seeks to document these emerging institutional mechanisms for realizing the right to food in nine countries in Eastern and Southern Africa: Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, South Africa, Uganda, United Republic of Tanzania,Zambia and Zimbabwe. It begins by providing background on the core content of the right to food and the corresponding State obligations to respect, protect and fulfil the right to food of its population. It continues by documenting constitutionalprovisions enshrining the right to food in Kenya and South Africa, as well as the possibility for other States, particularly Zambia, to adopt constitutional protection of the right to food in the future. It then lays out the challenges faced by Uganda, Malawi and Mozambique in adopting right to food framework laws and draws lessons from the sub-national level in Zanzibar and the Latin American context more generally. Following sections describe national strategies and policies aimed at the progressive realization of the right to food, focusing on South Africa, Kenya, Uganda and Zambia, and how actors have used courts and judicial actions in the region to protect, enforce and enhance the right to food in their national contexts. A final section examines the relationship between the Millennium Development Goals and the right to food.