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Land Reforms To Fight Hunger By Ramesh Jaura BONN, GERMANY, Mar (IPS) - An international conference has underlined the need for land and agrarian reforms as "a vital step toward peaceful solutions to persistent global hunger, rural poverty and resources conflicts". Some 125 participants from around the globe attended the gathering. They included the representatives of civil society, popular movements, women organisations and governments from 20 countries. The countries from which participants came, included Bangladesh, Benin, Bolivia, Brazil, Cambodia, Chile, Georgia, Ghana, Guatemala, Honduras, Italy, Lesotho, Mauritania, the Netherlands, the Philippines, South Africa and Zimbabwe. The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Bank also sent representatives. In a 23-point 'Bonn Statement on Access to Land', issued at the weekend, the participants expressed "concern that rhetoric has not been matched by action". This was despite international commitments made at the World Food Summit five years ago in Rome, the UN Millennium Summit last year and other high-level inter-governmental conferences to halve the number of poor and hungry people. Hunger afflicts more than 800 million people worldwide. "It is a fundamental constraint to development, especially of children, compromising their chances of a healthy and fulfilled life. Hunger fuels conflict and crime, reduces productivity and shortens life span," says the FAO, recalling the pledge made five years ago. At the 1996 World Food Summit, representatives from 185 countries and the European Community vowed to achieve universal food security, the access of all people at all times to sufficient, high-quality, safe food to lead active and healthy lives. The pledge to cut the number of hungry people in half by 2015 provided a time-bound, measurable goal. "Unfortunately, current data indicates that the number of undernourished is falling at a rate of 8 million each year, far below the average rate of 20 million per year needed to reach that target," says FAO. These figures were a source of anxiety to participants in the Bonn conference held from Mar 19-23. They also expressed concern that the ranks of the poor and dispossessed remain persistently high, and that in a globalising world the gap between rich and poor continues to widen. The majority of these poor are in rural areas where they are denied access to land and resources. "This denial aggravates social exclusion, increases imbalances of power and leads to destruction of self-esteem and identity. This situation is compounded by the continuing dispossession of communities of their natural environments, homes and livelihoods." The situation can however be changed, said the participants, "because we have the means". The statement said the governments had a role in promoting agrarian reform programmes. Such public policies must be formulated and implemented in a clear and transparent manner, actively promoting the rights of popular organisations, indigenous communities, peasants and women, the statement added. The participants also pleaded for making agrarian reforms an integral part of broader rural development strategies, recognising that these are part of wider processes of national development and not solely safety-net or social welfare or compensatory policies that isolate and marginalise. Stressing the need for transparency, the Bonn conference said, once there was a national decision to implement land and agrarian reforms, the process of decentralising should guarantee the involvement and participation of popular organisations, social movements and local governments. The process should be made in such a way that it does not reinforce the power of local elites. "Where agrarian reforms involve the relocation of people, resettlement must be voluntary and undertaken in a socially non-disruptive manner and with compensation when necessary," says the Bonn statement. It adds: "Governments must respect, protect and fulfill their human rights obligations in relation to civil, cultural, political and socio-economic rights. Access to productive resources including land through agrarian reform is an important part of such obligations." The Bonn conference also urged governments and inter-governmental organisations to guarantee access to legal instruments for recourse in land disputes and strengthen extra-judicial mediation for the resolution of land conflicts. This was an oblique reference to the land conflict in Zimbabwe. While the volatile situation there was not ignored, the conference did not go into much detail, but heard a bit about it. The conference was convened by the German Foundation for International Development (DSE) and the Working Group for Combating Poverty (AKA) on behalf of the German Ministry of Economic Co-operation and Development (BMZ), with personal engagement of deputy minister Uschi Eid. The group comprises of the German Agency for Technical Co-operation (GTZ), Deutsche Welthungerhilfe and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES).(END/IPS) |
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