Critics say small farmers and local markets are ill-served by the prevailing economic model. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

By Sabina Zaccaro
ROME, Oct 1 2013 (IPS)

Some 842 million people still suffer from chronic hunger, according to the State of Food Insecurity in the World (SOFI 2013), published Tuesday by the three Rome-based U.N. food agencies.

As high as this number seems, it should still be considered progress, since it is is down from 868 million last year.

Among the reasons behind this progress are economic growth in developing countries, which is improving incomes and access to food; pick-up in agricultural productivity; and increased public and private investments in agriculture.

Remittances from migrants are also playing a role in reducing poverty, according to the U.N. report.

The vast majority of hungry people live in developing regions, while 15.7 million live in developed countries. But despite the progress detected worldwide, strong inequalities in hunger reduction remain.

Sub-Saharan Africa has made only modest progress in recent years and remains the region with the highest prevalence of undernourishment, with one in four people (24.8 percent) estimated to be hungry.

No progress is observed in Western Asia, while Southern Asia and Northern Africa showed “slow progress”. More substantial reductions in both the number of hungry and prevalence of undernourishment have occurred in most countries of East Asia, Southeast Asia, and in Latin America.

Since 1990-92, the total number of undernourished in developing countries has fallen by 17 percent from 995.5 million to 826.6 million. The ambitious target set at the 1996 World Food Summit (WFS), to halve the number of hungry people by 2015, remains out of reach at the global level, even though 22 countries had already met it by the end of 2012.

The heads of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Food Programme (WFP) called for nutrition-sensitive interventions in agriculture and food systems as a whole, as well as in public health and education, especially for women.

Last year’s U.N. report received a detailed critique by a group of hunger researchers led by author Frances Moore Lappe. The publication offered specific recommendations mainly in relation to the presentation of hunger estimates and on the report’s methodology.

Researchers found that estimates represent the low end of the scale because they are based on food availability and the caloric requirements required only to lead a “sedentary lifestyle.” A less restrictive FAO threshold leads to an estimate of 1.33 billion hungry in the world rather than SOFI 2012’s 868 million, according to the group.

Another factor of concern was the focus on global hunger, which masks wide regional variation. In fact, progress in China and Vietnam alone account for more than 90 percent of the estimated reductions in the number of hungry people in the world. National success stories, like in Ghana and Brazil, “are lost in the global estimates, as are countries and regions in crisis.”

“This year’s report introduces important innovations, we go beyond the traditional FAO prevalence of undernourishment indicator to measure the various dimensions of food insecurity, in particular the nutritional outcomes of food insecurity,” said Pietro Gennari, director of the Statistics Division at the FAO.

“These can be measured by different indicators. In most cases, these indicators are consistent with the trends of prevalence of undernourishment, but this is not always the case, and we have studied specific countries to understand why we have these divergences and the policy measures that can address them.”

The report underlines that economic growth is key for progress in hunger reduction. “But that is not enough; targeted policies and social programmes are needed to achieve the goal of eradicating hunger worldwide,” Gennari said.

Some contest this emphasis on economic growth.

“The report offers some useful elements, like some of the new index, and more systematic information on food insecurity,” Antonio Onorati from IPC, the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty, told IPS. “But when it comes to solutions, it proposes old and ineffective recipes.”

“Like the idea that 600 million small producers who are food insecure simply need to increase their productivity in order to put their surplus into the market. As if the local market were functional to small-scale agriculture and to food security. It is not so.”

According to Onorati, local markets are only a reproduction of the global market, “that same market that generates crisis and even death of small farms, and which is finally a key component of food insecurity.”

“We would expect a deeper analysis of the role of local markets,” he said.

Findings of SOFI 2013 will be discussed by governments, civil society and private sector at the Oct. 7-11 meeting of the Committee on World Food Security in Rome.

Some 842 million people still suffer from chronic hunger, according to the State of Food Insecurity in the World (SOFI 2013), published Tuesday by the three Rome-based U.N. food agencies. As high as this number seems, it should still be considered progress, since it is is down from 868 million last year.

Critics say small farmers and local markets are ill-served by the prevailing economic model. Credit: Manipadma Jena/IPS

Among the reasons behind this progress are economic growth in developing countries, which is improving incomes and access to food; pick-up in agricultural productivity; and increased public and private investments in agriculture.

Remittances from migrants are also playing a role in reducing poverty, according to the U.N. report. The vast majority of hungry people live in developing regions, while 15.7 million live in developed countries. But despite the progress detected worldwide, strong inequalities in hunger reduction remain.

Sub-Saharan Africa has made only modest progress in recent years and remains the region with the highest prevalence of undernourishment, with one in four people (24.8 percent) estimated to be hungry. No progress is observed in Western Asia, while Southern Asia and Northern Africa showed “slow progress”. More substantial reductions in both the number of hungry and prevalence of undernourishment have occurred in most countries of East Asia, Southeast Asia, and in Latin America.

Since 1990-92, the total number of undernourished in developing countries has fallen by 17 percent from 995.5 million to 826.6 million. The ambitious target set at the 1996 World Food Summit (WFS), to halve the number of hungry people by 2015, remains out of reach at the global level, even though 22 countries had already met it by the end of 2012.

The heads of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Food Programme (WFP) called for nutrition-sensitive interventions in agriculture and food systems as a whole, as well as in public health and education, especially for women.

Last year’s U.N. report received a detailed critique by a group of hunger researchers led by author Frances Moore Lappe. The publication offered specific recommendations mainly in relation to the presentation of hunger estimates and on the report’s methodology.

Researchers found that estimates represent the low end of the scale because they are based on food availability and the caloric requirements required only to lead a “sedentary lifestyle.” A less restrictive FAO threshold leads to an estimate of 1.33 billion hungry in the world rather than SOFI 2012’s 868 million, according to the group.

Another factor of concern was the focus on global hunger, which masks wide regional variation. In fact, progress in China and Vietnam alone account for more than 90 percent of the estimated reductions in the number of hungry people in the world. National success stories, like in Ghana and Brazil, “are lost in the global estimates, as are countries and regions in crisis.”

“This year’s report introduces important innovations, we go beyond the traditional FAO prevalence of undernourishment indicator to measure the various dimensions of food insecurity, in particular the nutritional outcomes of food insecurity,” said Pietro Gennari, director of the Statistics Division at the FAO.

“These can be measured by different indicators. In most cases, these indicators are consistent with the trends of prevalence of undernourishment, but this is not always the case, and we have studied specific countries to understand why we have these divergences and the policy measures that can address them.”

The report underlines that economic growth is key for progress in hunger reduction. “But that is not enough; targeted policies and social programmes are needed to achieve the goal of eradicating hunger worldwide,” Gennari said. Some contest this emphasis on economic growth.

“The report offers some useful elements, like some of the new index, and more systematic information on food insecurity,” Antonio Onorati from IPC, the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty, told IPS. “But when it comes to solutions, it proposes old and ineffective recipes.”

“Like the idea that 600 million small producers who are food insecure simply need to increase their productivity in order to put their surplus into the market. As if the local market were functional to small-scale agriculture and to food security. It is not so.” According to Onorati, local markets are only a reproduction of the global market, “that same market that generates crisis and even death of small farms, and which is finally a key component of food insecurity.”

“We would expect a deeper analysis of the role of local markets,” he said. Findings of SOFI 2013 will be discussed by governments, civil society and private sector at the Oct. 7-11 meeting of the Committee on World Food Security in Rome.

No one would expect a Pope elected by an extremely conservative conclave to implement revolutionary reforms within the Catholic Church. Still, many see in the newly elected Pope Francis some signs of change.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio (76), cardinal and archbishop of Buenos Aires, was elected Wednesday by an assembly of Roman Catholic cardinals, and became the successor to Pope Benedict XVI, who abdicated unexpectedly in February.

This is the first time in the history of the papacy that a non-European from the Jesuit order has been elected as pontiff.

The reaction among hundreds of people gathered Wednesday night in St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican City awaiting the announcement was positive. Some feel this is because the new Pope chose the name Francis, a symbol of poverty and interreligious dialogue, and because of the non-conventional attitude he struck with his first few words.

“Signs are important,” Tonio dell’Olio, an Italian priest and head of the international section of Libera, a leading anti-corruption association, told IPS. “The choice of the name (and) his very simple and humble way of addressing the people is already a promise of change.”

“Perhaps it is the kind of change that does not reflect our common parametres and expectations, and won’t necessarily (fit into) the category ‘progress’, which we normally use for our evaluation. But what is certain is that we are facing a change that will need to be fully understood” in time.

Certainly, Cardinal Bergoglio is a theological conservative with a clear stand on “non negotiable values” like abortion, gay marriage and the adoption of children by gay couples,  some of the main causes for clashes with Argentina’s left-leaning government.

Bergoglio also has a history of ambiguous relationships with Argentina’s 1976-1983 military dictatorship – during which the country was torn apart by the conflict known as the Dirty War — which were made public through extensive reports that have appeared over the last few years.

Yet Christians have seen in his symbolic, unconventional actions some signs of hope for a humbler Church, closer to the people.

To the eyes of more progressive churches, the challenge of responding to civil rights issues is something the new Pope cannot delay further, nor the necessary, renewed, interreligious dialogue.

“We want to congratulate him and express best wishes to him (in the hopes) that he can be a leader of the Catholic Church who can build a real, strong and sincere ecumenical and interreligious dialogue, (together) with modern Western culture,” Pastor Eugenio Bernardini, moderator of the Waldensian Church, told IPS.

The 58-year-old father of three recently succeeded former moderator Maria Bonafede, the first woman to hold such position.

In cultural, political and social arenas, Bernardini said, leaders of the Catholic Church tend to deliver “monologues” rather than “engage in frank dialogues”.

This is also true for the ecumenical relation with different Christian confessions, which has been on hold since the time of John Paul II, he said. “Yes, we do meet regularly and have fraternal relationships but no concrete steps have been taken on ecumenism.”

The same is true from the point of view of rights. Much of the international community now recognises values such as personal responsibility, democracy, and transparency, which the Catholic Church fails to recognise, Bernardini said. “But the Catholics are now asking the Church to move on these lines.”

While no particular progressive steps are expected from Bergoglio from a doctrinal point of view, his devotion to Francis, the saint of the poor, and his personal lifestyle, which has been described as “simple and close to the poor”, might lead to a different style of handling the controversial relationship between power and money within the Church.

In a phone interview with IPS, Bernd Nilles, secretary-general of CIDSE, a Brussels-based international alliance of Catholic development agencies, said he expects the new Pope to pay particular attention to the poor.

“We do hope that Pope Francis, in his reflections and guidance, will go beyond the encyclical from former Pope Benedict XVII, where he already spoke of human dignity, charity and global injustice,” Nilles told IPS.

“Maybe this new Pope who comes from the global South, has worked with the poor and understands the daily struggles of poor people and communities, can give new perspective on what exactly human dignity means and how we can overcome the suffering of so many people.”

According to Nilles, Bergoglio is also well placed to understand “the potential and the creativity of the contribution that poor communities can make to a world that is in crisis.

“Let’s take the issue of sustainability and respect for nature: the modern world we have created is reaching planetary boundaries with our (current rate of) resource consumption. Pope Francis, by choosing this name, indicates already that we need a fundamental change in the way we live, in terms of how we deal with natural resources but also how we deal with people.”

Given that the Catholic Church has made the fight against poverty and social justice a high priority, many organisations build their daily advocacy and lobby work for global justice on the key pillars of this teaching, he said.

But much of how these teachings are translated into action depends on the Pope and the presence of the Church’s commitment “in the field”.

“We hope for a leadership that will strengthen our efforts for a more just world,” Nilles added.

For Pastor Benardini, it will be hard for the new Pope to introduce deep changes, being an expression of Catholic conservatism.

“This Pope was very close to John Paul who had a very conservative approach. He is leading an institution with a very traditional – and non transparent – selection method,” he stressed.

The change in such rigid institutions will come about primarily through a bottom-up push, he said, from a request raised by society.

“If the pope is able to listen to the people and can bring about a progressive change of direction” that will be a good result in and of itself, he added.

“He is the third consecutive non-Italian pope. But if the Roman Curia and the Vatican remain attached to tradition, even a Pope who comes from another continent will have to struggle a lot to reproduce in Rome the more open, informal and lively approach of faith in non-European countries.”

By Sabina Zaccaro
ROME, Oct 19 2012 (IPS)

It is a tried and tested truth that when women come together in groups they can address their issues more powerfully than they can as individuals.

Saquina Mucavele, executive director of MuGeDe – Mulher, Genero e Desenvolvimento (Women, Gender and Development), a non-profit based in Mozambique. Credit: Sabina Zaccaro/IPS

Cooperatives provide a sense of accountability and commitment, as well as healthy competition that brings tangible results, according to Saquina Mucavele, executive director of MuGeDe – Mulher, Genero e Desenvolvimento (Women, Gender and Development), a Mozambique-based non-profit organisation with a focus on sustainability, rural development and gender.

In Rome to participate in a seminar sponsored by the World Farmers Organisation on Oct. 19 about how agricultural cooperatives can assist rural women, Mucavele believes that “there is a need for stronger local networks that address women farmers’ and peasants’ specific demands, with a special focus on rural women smallholder farmers.”

Speaking to IPS correspondent Sabina Zaccaro on the sidelines of World Food Week, whose theme this year is ‘Agricultural cooperatives – key to feeding the world‘, hosted by the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), Mucavele said, “These networks are unfocused and weak. There is (an urgent) need for capacity-building in rural institutions to promote women’s participation in development.”

Excerpts of the interview follow:

Q: How do agricultural cooperatives support female agricultural workers?

A: Networks and cooperatives are the right strategy for farmers’ development (provided) they have support and good leadership. Working cooperatively is not only about being involved in common work, it also enables members to share their problems and find collective solutions.

There is even the possibility of creating a common market, and other facilities such as hospitals, education centres and banks, for members. By gathering in a cooperative, rural women can strengthen their voice to advocate for rights.

Q: What role should men play in this process?

A: There is an urgent need to change the attitude and mindset within rural communities, where male dominance prevails in all sectors of development. In agriculture, for example, more resources are allocated to the production of cash crops, an area dominated by men, while women are confined to subsistence farming (with fewer) resources and limited access to markets for their perishable goods.

Men should work together with women, recognising that the issue of gender (inequality) affects both men and women, though women feel it more acutely. Men should be fully involved in the goals of reaching sustainable development and reducing gender inequality.

Q: According to recent studies, if women are given the tools to increase food production and productivity they can reduce the number of undernourished people in the world by 12 to 17 percent. How can women overcome barriers to resources and land in order to provide more food?

A: In order to improve productivity and farming methods, rural women need technical advice, information and training.

A good development strategy would recognise the (crucial) role of educating and training rural women to improve production and productivity; promote women-friendly farming technologies that could reduce (the work day) and give women more time for political participation within the community and for other income-generating activities; and institutionalise their involvement and participation in the conception, formulation and planning of policies.

They cannot continue to be seen only as ‘beneficiaries’ but a group in possession of (valuable) knowledge that can advance rural development and also contribute to the national economy.

Finally, it is vital to support and assist women in the registration of and access to land titles and facilitate the issue of credit, especially for smallholder women farmers. This should (ideally) be done through a fund to support women farmers and the creation of women’s banks in rural areas where members can access credit under favourable terms.

Q: Despite the fact that women make up over 75 percent of agricultural workers and livestock-keepers in developing countries and constitute the majority of food producers, processors and marketers in Africa, their role in determining policies in the agricultural sector still remains a minor one. Why?

A: (Deep-rooted) cultural perceptions could be one reason. Women’s opinions are not valued and their rights (are seldom) acknowledged. Age-old barriers like the patriarchal system need to be addressed by engaging not only the government but also traditional (village or district) leaders.

Another reason is the lack of access and control over land and all productive resources, as well as the fact that the highest rates of illiteracy are among women, particularly rural women.

The government should back its agricultural policies with the relevant legal frameworks in support of the development of smallholder women. They should support women’s involvement in the formulation, implementation and review of the budgeting process to ensure that resource allocations are gender responsive.

Q: With 35 percent of its households chronically food insecure and 46 percent of all children below fives years malnourished, Mozambique is one of the world’s poorest countries. Do you see Mozambique’s current presidency of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP) as an opportunity to advance new actions on food security and hunger?

A: Heading the CPLP is a big challenge for Mozambique as it involves (leveraging) existing cultural, political and economic ties in an effort to combat poverty and hunger through the promotion of agriculture, expansion of markets and sharing of information within the community.

Our biggest concerns revolve around the implementation of the Regional CPLP Strategy for Food and Nutrition Security and the creation of the Food Security and Nutrition Council (CONSAN), frameworks (designed) to achieve the goal of a world without hunger.

There is also the challenge of implementing other regional gender protocols and conventions that have already been signed but not fully implemented, like the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa.

The CPLP Rural Women’s Forum will advocate for the creation of specific legislation for rural women and their leading role in agriculture.

(END)

Excerpt:

Nearly 870 million people, one in eight, suffered from chronic undernourishment over the last two years. Credit: Isaiah Esipisu/IPS

By Sabina Zaccaro
ROME, Oct 9 2012 (IPS)

New data from the United Nations reveals that there has been progress in reducing the number of hungry people worldwide. But an estimate that nearly 870 million people, one in eight, suffered from chronic undernourishment over the last two years is “unacceptable”, experts say.

The number of chronically hungry people has declined by 130 million since 1990, falling from around one billion people to 868 million. The vast majority of these people, 852 million, live in developing countries, which means that 15 percent of the developing world suffers from hunger, while 16 million people are undernourished in developed countries.

Meanwhile, the proportion of the global population that is classified as ‘undernourished’ dropped from 18.6 percent in 1990 to the current level of 12.5 percent, and from 23.2 percent to 14.9 percent in developing countries.

The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2012 (SOFI), jointly released by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Food Programme (WFP), “presents better estimates of chronic undernourishment based on an improved methodology and data for the last two decades.”

The report suggests that if “appropriate actions” are taken to feed the hungry and reverse the slowdown of 2007-2008, the goal of halving the number of hungry people in the developing world by 2015 is still attainable.

“If the average annual hunger reduction of the past 20 years continues through to 2015, the percentage of undernourishment in developing countries (will) reach 12.5 percent – still above the MDG (Millennium Development Goal) target of 11.6 percent, but much closer to it than previously estimated,” the report says.

“The good news is that we have some progress but it still means that one person in every eight goes hungry, and that is unacceptable,” FAO Director General José Graziano da Silva told reporters at the FAO headquarters on Tuesday. “To the FAO the only acceptable number with hunger is zero.”

“Even if we halve the world’s hungry by 2015, it is necessary to look forward and towards the total eradication of hunger, answering the call made at the Rio+20 Summit by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in his ‘Zero Hunger Challenge’,” said Graziano da Silva.

The situation is particularly bad in Africa, where the number of hungry has grown in the last twenty years from 175 to 239 million. In sub-Saharan Africa, the modest progress achieved in recent years was reversed in 2007, with hunger rising two percent annually since then.

Despite population growth, the prevalence of undernourishment in Asia and the Pacific decreased from 23.7 percent to 13.9 percent, largely due to socio-economic progress in many countries in the region.

Latin America and the Caribbean also made progress, going from 65 million hungry people to 49 million between 1990 and 2012, though the rate of progress has slowed recently.

Developed regions also saw the number of hungry rise from 13 million to 16 million between 2004 and 2012.

The new data was gathered using updated information on population, food supply, food losses, dietary energy requirements and a more accurate calculation of the distribution of food within countries. This methodology does not capture the short-term effects of food price surges and other economic shocks but focuses exclusively on the number of chronically hungry people worldwide.

Economic growth is necessary for sustainable and sustained progress in reducing hunger and malnutrition, according to the report. However it also found that growth alone is not sufficient if governments do not “use the additional revenues from economic growth to create targeted measures to help hungry people”.

In order to achieve really inclusive growth, “social protection systems are needed to ensure that the most vulnerable can also benefit from growth and participate in it”.

The FAO estimates that childhood malnutrition causes the deaths of more than 2.5 million children every year. Decreased food consumption can reduce children’s intake of key nutrients during the first thousand days of life, starting from conception.

“We know that proper nutrition in this period gives a child the best possible start in life,” Valerie Guarnieri, WFP’s head of programme, told IPS. “Inadequate nutrition during that phase (could cause) irreversible consequences to child growth and development. If we can ensure that a pregnant mother and a child up until the age of two have access to that adequate nutrition then the development of the brain is stimulated, the growth of the child is stimulated (and) they will have the best opportunity to participate and learn in school.

“And that even contributes to higher income and growth for themselves and their families as they progress through life,” she added.

The report also stresses the link between agricultural growth involving small farmers and malnutrition reduction in poor countries. “There is huge potential to tackle poverty through smart agricultural growth,” Carlos Seré, chief development strategist of IFAD, told IPS. “The starting point has to be an inclusive growth model, and a very efficient and sustainable approach is required.”

Agricultural growth involving smallholders, especially women, is reported to be most effective in reducing extreme poverty and hunger when it generates employment for the poor.

While indicating progress, the U.N. data elicited sceptical responses from civil society.

According to Marco de Ponte, secretary general of ActionAid, Italy, the reported decrease in the number of hungry people is mainly due to the fact that the global food price crisis had less of an impact on countries like China, India and Indonesia than was previously calculated.

“This means that the (new) data does not result from a stronger political commitment by governments (to reduce hunger),” he told IPS.

(END)

That smallholder farmers hold the key to Africa’s agricultural potential is widely recognised. Credit: Kristin Palitza/IPS

By Sabina Zaccaro
ROME, Sep 21 2012 (IPS)

As the world searches desperately for ways to boost food production by at least 70 percent by 2050 to feed an increasingly hungry planet, many are looking to Africa as the place where a large part of this potential can be realised, mainly for its huge portion of arable land.

Arusha, Tanzania, will soon become the site of a major brainstorming session on this very topic, when it plays host to the African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) from Sept. 26 to 28, which is aimed at developing African-led food security solutions.

At the recent G8 Summit, global leaders including 21 African countries and 27 private sector companies committed three billion dollars to a new alliance for food security and nutrition.

Their goal is to raise 50 million people out of poverty over the next 10 years. AGRF is designed to encourage African leaders’ commitments by promoting ad hoc investments and policy support to increase agricultural productivity and income growth for African farmers – primarily through environmentally sustainable methods and innovative agricultural finance models.

The President of IFAD, Dr. Kanayo F. Nwanze, will address these issues at the Arusha Forum in a panel focusing on how to make African national and regional markets work.

Tanzania’s recent agricultural growth represents a case study of what is possible, forum organisers say. In the Kilombero district of Morogoro, the yields for maize have recently increased for some smallholder farmers from 1.5 to 4.5 tonnes per hectare; the yields for rice have increased from 2.5 to 6.5 tonnes per hectare.

That smallholder farmers hold the key to Africa’s agricultural potential is widely recognised, and activists hope the forum will “explore new ways to provide resources, overcome challenges and improve yields for the millions of farmers who are working less than two hectares of land across the continent”.

According to Carlos Seré, chief development strategist of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), increasing agricultural investments is a key factor. “We haven’t invested in agriculture since the green revolution as much as we should have, because it was basically felt that this was something that the market would take care of.”

“Now we realise that we have small stocks. The big stocks, for example of cereals, kept by the government agencies in the past have now been reduced significantly. So when drought in the United States or in Australia, or problems in Russia hit these markets, then prices go up rapidly because there isn’t a big buffer of these stocks like the ones of the past.”

Agricultural investments have a huge direct impact on the lives of smallholders, who manage a large proportion of the land in the developing world.

“They need more public goods in terms of research, extension and a conducive policy environment,” Seré told IPS.

“IFAD is fully involved in helping governments to do that. Our work is about increasing the supply of food, and helping build the resilience of smallholders and their organisations to become more efficient, using land more efficiently, sharing knowledge, getting better organised, and increasing their production in a more cost effective manner, getting food to the cities and markets without incurring high transaction costs.”

Many of the world’s poorest people spend more than half their income on food, making them vulnerable when food prices rise.

The FAO food price index, which measures monthly price changes for a food basket of cereals, oilseeds, dairy products, meat and sugar, averaged 213 points in August, unchanged from July. Although still high, the FAO index currently stands 25 points below its peak of 238 points in February 2011 and 18 points below its August 2011 level.

According to FAO, the index is reassuring and, although vigilance is needed, current prices “do not justify talk of a world food crisis”.

“This is a very different situation from what we had a couple of years back,” Seré told IPS. “We do realise that this situation has to be monitored carefully, but we clearly don’t see it as being as serious as what we had before.”

Food security experts believe that the international community is now better prepared to deal with global food price shocks than it was in 2007 and 2008. “We have stronger mechanisms for coordination, analysis, and information sharing,” according to Seré.

Many challenges still remain. “There is need for productivity growth, particularly in smallholder agriculture systems, better climate-adapted farming, better functioning and integrated markets, and higher and more stable incomes for women and men living in poverty,” Seré said.

All these issues should be part of a continuing agenda, which goes beyond specific instances of global price spikes.

What is troubling to some experts is the lack of global awareness of the interconnected outcomes of food insecurity. But when the international price of cereals began to rise to record levels in June this year, following one of the worst droughts ever to hit the U.S. – the world’s largest producer of maize and soybeans – it sent a strong message about an interdependent global food system.

“I think it is vital to make the link between the food crisis at home and what happens in the rest of the world,” Seré said. “People often don’t have a clear understanding of how interconnected these issues are. For example, soybeans for pig feed in Germany come from Brazil, (which is) affected by rain forest clearing there and then there are jobs attached to producing these commodities in (various) different places.”

Only a holistic analysis of the food system can lead to concrete, global solutions.

(END)

By Sabina Zaccaro
Jun 7 2012 (IPS)

While governments make a last desperate attempt to agree on a plan of action for next week’s Rio+20 summit on sustainable development – including plans on the transition to a green economy and a set of sustainable development goals – the real economy is already turning green, according to Italy’s minister of environment, Corrado Clini.

Corrado Clini, Italian Minister of Environment. Credit: Italian Ministry of Environment

It is extremely hard for governments with vastly different interests and priorities to settle on a common approach to sustainable development, which is why negotiations on the outcome document have been progressing very slowly, Clini told IPS.

The most recent meeting of the Preparatory Committee to finalise the plan of action for next week’s conference failed to reach an agreement. The next, and last, three-day session of the Committee will take place Jun. 13-15.

But while politicians are struggling to move towards a new, environment-friendly development model and agree on a common agenda, national investments in renewable energies and energy efficiency are already in place and growing fast, he said.

Clini said that one of the more realistic expectations for Rio +20 is that it will at least “recognise and reflect this global trend that is already (underway).”

Excerpts of the interview follow.

Q: How do you explain the discrepancy between political action and economic progress?

A: Governments will come to a weak agreement, but civil society and private companies are progressing rapidly towards more sustainable standards. The quality of market products – like light bulbs, cars, boilers and now even materials in the building industry – are (moving) towards common standards that are more respectful of the environment. This is true also for emerging economies, where (environmental) standards are higher.

The great expectation after the first Rio conference back in 1992 was that the economy would incorporate sustainability. Over the last twenty years we have seen that this was not accomplished from a political point of view, while technologies made a lot of progress. Technology and politics are two parallel areas progressing at an asynchronous pace.

Q: Do you see any possibility of a convergence between these two areas?

A: There are some interesting combinations. These occur when politics “absorb” progress that is already happening. The European Union’s policy on more efficient lighting systems is an example of absorbing an already consolidated evolution of technology. That phenomenon is also happening in China, where the government is making the most of existing technologies.

So you have the combination of what is already mature in the market with national policies that make progress possible. That should be our goal, and that is what we are already trying to do with biofuels on a global level. It is a complex, but interesting process.

Q: The Italian coalition Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP), which encompasses over 70 civil society organisations, is asking world leaders to equate the green economy with an equal distribution of resources. Is that possible?

A: That is the ambitious goal of so-called ‘inclusive green growth’. The European Union is committed to this comprehensive approach that, many years ago, was called the ‘new world order’.

The answer cannot, of course, come from the Rio conference. Rio +20 will provide us with an updated list of issues, not with the solution to these issues. The EU has its proposals, but not all member countries necessarily share those views.

Q: What are your expectations for next week’s conference?

A: Political outcomes of Rio +20 (such as the weak outcome document) are quite predictable. But there is hope for some other aspects.

The Rio conference can be important for Europe, which needs to build new global partnerships with emerging countries, like China, as it moves towards a low carbon economy. Brazil, with its fossil resources, can also be a key ally in efforts to promote (economic) growth that protects natural resources.

This week the EU environment commissioner (Janez Potočnik) launched the European Resource Efficiency Platform to provide advice on policy measures to (nudge) the European economy towards a more sustainable growth path. The primary task of the platform will be to determine how to achieve the goals set out in the EU Commission’s Roadmap to a resource-efficient Europe, including the issue of decoupling resource use and its impacts from economic growth.

Resource efficiency is a key issue for a growth that is sustainable and inclusive. I think that Rio+20 could give the EU the courage it needs to continue on this path.

Finally, key members of civil society in developing countries could emerge and gain global visibility. I think that civil society in emerging counties would greatly benefit from this.

(END)

Excerpt:

Maize drying in San Cristóbal de las Casas, in the southern state of Chiapas. Credit: Mauricio Ramos/IPS

By Sabina Zaccaro
ROME, May 30 2012 (IPS)

The upcoming Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development will not succeed if the crises of hunger and malnutrition are not effectively addressed. The issues are so inextricably linked with sustainable development that they have to be part of the agenda, according to a report released Wednesday by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) for the upcoming Earth Summit that will take place in Rio de Janeiro from Jun. 20-22.

Despite progresses in food production hundreds of millions of people remain hungry because “they lack the means to produce or purchase the food they need for a healthy and productive life” according to the report, which stresses the strong connection between hunger reduction and sustainable development.

Agriculture and food systems are major consumers of natural resources, using up over 30 percent of the world’s energy, while “crop and livestock sectors use 70 percent of all water withdrawals”, said the report.

The FAO estimates that three fourths of the world’s poor and hungry live in rural areas and depend on agriculture for their livelihoods, while forty percent of the world’s degraded lands are in areas with high poverty rates.

“Hunger puts in motion a vicious cycle of reduced productivity, deepening poverty, slow economic development and resource degradation,” according to the report.

“We cannot call development sustainable while this situation persists, while nearly one out of every seven men, women and children are left behind, victims of undernourishment,” said FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva in a statement.

“The quest for food security can be the common thread that links the different challenges we face and helps build a sustainable future. At the Rio Summit we have the golden opportunity to explore the convergence between the agendas of food security and sustainability to ensure that happens.”

The Conference, which will attempt to reach an agreement on the transition to a green economy, will discuss investment in renewable energy and the efficient use of natural resources.

The FAO report urges governments to establish and protect rights to resources, especially for the poor; incorporate incentives for sustainable consumption and production into food systems; promote fair and well-functioning agricultural and food markets; reduce risks and increase the resilience of the most vulnerable; and invest public resources in essential public goods, especially innovation and infrastructure.

“The transition to a sustainable future requires fundamental changes in the governance of food and agriculture and an equitable distribution of the transition costs for farmers to switch over to more sustainable farming methods,” Keith Wiebe, FAO deputy director of the Agricultural Development Economics Division, told IPS.

Access to natural resources – such as land, water or forests – is essential for the 2.5 billion people who produce food for their own consumption and income, according to the report.

Farmers who run the 500 million small farms in developing countries – and the majority of them are women – face various resource limitations including insufficient access to food, land, water and nutrition.

“Hundreds of millions of people suffer from hunger and other nutritional deficiencies, and the majority of those people derive their livelihoods from agriculture,” Wiebe said. “These poor farmers, along with more commercialised producers, constitute the largest group of natural resource managers on earth. Their daily decisions are key to the health of the world’s ecosystems.”

Adoption of the guidelines follows a three-year-long process of negotiations with the Committee on World Food Security that includes governments, U.N. agencies, civil society, international organisations and the private sector and is the leading global platform for discussing food security issues. Massive global peasants’ collectives like La Via Campesina recognise this as an important tool, though actual implementation will depend on endorsing countries.

Better governance of the food and agriculture system should also be discussed at Rio, along with a comprehensive analysis of who will shoulder the financial burden of sustainable development, according to the report.

The FAO has asked governments and stakeholders attending Rio+20 to reduce hunger more swiftly “and do everything possible to improve how food and agriculture systems are governed,” Wiebe told IPS. “They should ensure that the costs, and the benefits, of the transition to sustainable agriculture are borne equitably.”

Other required actions include supporting the implementation of technical and policy approaches to agricultural development that integrate food security and environmental objectives; ensuring that costs and benefits of the transition to sustainable food production and consumption systems are shared equitably; adopting integrated approaches to achieving sustainable agriculture and food systems; and implementing governance reforms to ensure polices are carried out and commitments are fulfilled.

(END)

As developing countries struggle with climate catastrophes, EU funding commitments fall short. Credit: Mauricio Ramos/IPS

By Sabina Zaccaro
ROME, May 13 2012 (IPS)

The European Union has been using all means necessary to fill the multi- billion-euro fund for climate change, including the controversial mobilisation of public resources through private financial intermediaries.

Following the Copenhagen Climate Change summit in December 2009, rich countries pledged an annual 100 billion dollars (72 billion euros) by 2020 to help developing countries deal with the impacts of climate change.

The EU committed to providing 7.2 billion euros for the fund over the period 2010-12, most of which will presumably be channelled through the Green Climate Fund

Although originally this money was expected to come from public sources, developed countries are now leveraging substantial amounts of private finance to raise funds. Increasing attention is being given to financial intermediaries that supposedly have easier access to private investment in developing countries, and are thus better able to stimulate financial flows.

Experts say it may be possible to raise funds in the range of 100-200 billion dollars (72-144 billion euros) per year through these intermediaries, as a result of private flows from developed to developing countries.

The idea is that development banks and financial institutions, such as the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), use public money to invest in financial intermediaries working in developing countries to attract private investors.

A recent study by the London-based Bretton Woods Project on the use of banks, private equity firms and financial intermediaries by the IFC found that the latter’s lending has grown enormously over the past decade, with commitments reaching a record 18 billion dollars in the 2010 financial year.

The report found that instead of managing its own loans and investments, the IFC routinely relies on financial intermediaries such as banks and private investment funds. In the 2010 financial year, finance sector lending made up over half of all new project commitments.

There has been much debate over the past few weeks on how much of the EU’s share of the 100 billion dollars should come from the private sector – a trend civil society organisations (CSOs) believe would risk reducing the need for public funds.

In particular, CSOs are calling for more transparency on the use of these funds and clearer reporting on the effectiveness of the funded projects.

Least support for the least developed countries

A recent report by the European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad) found crucial gaps in knowledge of how money is leveraged through financial intermediaries.

It also assessed the role of these brokers in low-income countries (LICs) and in supporting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and examined the main monitoring and accountability constraints when using financial intermediaries.

“The problem is that development finance institutions are channelling a tiny amount of climate money to least developed countries (LDCs) or LICs,” Javier Pereira, author of the Eurodad report, told IPS.

“Of all the projects in the IFC and EIB’s portfolios we assessed, (amounting to) roughly 46 billion euros, we only found a total of five projects targeting climate finance in four LICs (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Madagascar). If you use the LDC classification, the figure is only three projects in two countries (Uganda and Madagascar). If you look at the EIB only, it has three projects in three LICs (Uganda, Tanzania and Madagascar, of which only two are LDCs).”

According to Pereira, study results show that “if using intermediaries and focusing on the private sector is going to be the main use of climate finance, there is an actual risk of (skipping over) the poorest countries.”

Various EU officials told IPS that the EU remains committed to its original pledges.

“It has always been clear that this funding will need to come from a variety of sources both public and private; accordingly a variety of instruments and approaches will be needed to meet the challenge, balancing between support for mitigation and adaptation,” one source said.

“In this context, official development assistance (ODA) mobilised (by) private financing, can contribute to creating a positive spiral of regulatory reform, sense of national ownership and – paired with a national Low Emissions Climate Resilient Development Strategy – facilitate the establishment of a sustained enabling environment for private investors,” the official told IPS.

No accountability?

According to report authors, monitoring financial intermediaries is extremely difficult and there is a lack of mechanisms to ensure private climate finance is aligned with developing countries’ priorities.

“To be accurate, these are not private funds, but public funds given to private entities, like investment funds or private equity funds, then recorded as ‘climate finance’ by governments and finance institutions,” Elena Gerebizza from Italy’s Campaign to Reform the World Bank (CRBM), who contributed to the report, told IPS.

“So an item of the public administration actually becomes a (way to) support the private sector, and through actors that are not necessarily committed to the fight against climate change or even contribute to that fight.”

Gerebizza said these private actors have no incentive to respect any environmental or social standards, are not correctly monitored by governments and their projects are not traceable because the information on their ‘climate funds’ is not public. “We don’t even know if they have any impact on climate at all.”

“In addition to the bilateral climate related assistance the Global Climate Change Alliance (GCCA) remains the main vehicle for the Commission to deliver assistance to the LDCs,” EU sources told IPS.

From 2008-2011, the GCCA, an EU initiative providing assistance and capacity building specifically to the LDCs, has contributed over 200 million euros in support of more than 30 countrywide and regional programmes.

“The European Commission also uses United Nations agencies and international finance institutions (IFIs) to help it deliver specific programmes and assistance to developing countries. The related contractual arrangements include reporting requirements on the use of the funds and the activities supported. It is standard practice for the Commission to stipulate intermediate and final reports on the use of funding,” sources said.

This week Europe’s Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard held informal discussions in Brussels with 30 countries including representatives from the LDCs and the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), who are calling for “more ambitious measures to reduce global carbon emissions and finance the fight against climate change.”

A primary concern of the informal meetings was how to close the gap in climate financing commitments. While the EU has committed to 7.2 billion euros for the Climate Fund over the 2010-12 period, the actual contribution so far remains unclear.

A diverse blend of coffee is going to pervade the city of Milan in 2015. World producers will come together to show, exchange and market their coffee in a global alliance without geographical-based membership.

A coffee berry picker in Busia, Uganda, one of the biggest coffee producing nations in the world. Credit: Wambi Michael/IPS

The Expo 2015, scheduled to run from May 1 – Oct. 31 in the Northern city of Milan, Italy, will focus on food and nutrition. Titled “Feeding the planet, energy for life”, the Expo aims at stimulating and leading a global discussion on the challenges linked to food production, safety, availability and nutrition.

Along with the usual exhibition spaces built by participating countries, the Italian Expo will introduce thematic spaces meant to gather within the same architectural project a number of countries sharing a common theme.

Coffee producers have already met in Rome, where delegates of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Honduras, Kenya, Nicaragua, Uganda, Colombia, Vietnam and Indonesia discussed how to build a shared space at the Expo.

“The ‘cluster’ approach is an innovative model of participation in an Expo, and it is the first time that it is (being) applied,” Filippo Ciantia of the International Affairs Department for Expo 2015 told IPS.

According to Ciantia this approach will give equal dignity to all participating countries, despite their political or economic weight. “In past (Expos), countries that were not able or didn’t want to run their own autonomous space – which (requires) quite a big investment – were put in joint pavilions, geographically grouped, so you had the African space, the Asian space, and so on.

“But the world has changed and we want an Expo that reflects the 21st century. The voices and experiences of developing countries – especially on a theme like ‘feeding the planet’ – are essential for success. Gathering countries around a thematic issue will allow the Expo to really address the issues of agriculture, nutrition and sustainable development (from) a global perspective,” Ciantia said.

“Nutrition is a key issue for both the developing and developed world and we think that this inclusive approach can be positive for participating countries and for visitors who can learn about the different ways of producing coffee, for example in Guatemala and in Uganda.”

Coffee is just one of the thematic clusters of the Expo, the others will be rice, cocoa, legumes, oil, seeds and fruits, cereals and tubers, and spices.

Delegates showed enthusiastic reactions. “The cluster concept demystifies geographical boundaries, it is a very powerful concept,” Tom Buringuriza, commissioner general of the Uganda section, told IPS. “It is a new way to break some of the barriers we had.”

Buringuriza said the participating countries fully agree on the concept of the joint work. “It is a shared view, I would not be here if we didn’t believe in it.”

He explained how African countries have been working to find ways of breaking down boundaries. “ECOWAS (the Economic Community of West African States) and SADC (the Southern African Development Community), for example, are attempts to federate, to break the boundaries, to emulate the big federation of countries like the U.S. and (groupings) like the European Union, though you know geographical boundaries are already planted into people’s minds.”

The clusters’ approach can erase blocks, Buringuriza said. “To find Uganda at the same table as Honduras or Guatemala on the common theme of coffee is so important…we can all learn how to add value and improve export, and find ways to come together as a strong unit, you need to be part of a bigger family. It’s exactly what we are trying to do in Africa – in East Africa we are coming together as the East African community (Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi), we are having common tariffs, we are talking about a common currency, we are talking about free movement of labour, we are meeting regularly.

“The (obstacle) to federation has always been geographical boundaries, now this innovation of using a common product eliminates those blocks, and this is what coffee is going to do for us,” he added.

“In this room we have 70 percent of the world’s coffee producers,” Ciantia said. “Even those who are less known, like Uganda, which is one of the biggest coffee producers in the world. We want to give dignity, participation and visibility to small countries and developing countries.”

Beyond the marketing and investment opportunities, delegates see in this kind of work a cultural and learning opportunity. “This approach is very useful,” Josephine W. Gaita, Kenyan Ambassador to Italy, told IPS.

“Our county produces coffee and every country has got various methods to do that. In participating in a cluster they have the chance of learning from each other the best practices, you have information and research there to improve your techniques and make sure that the coffee you produce is better.”

“Of course, learning from each other and sharing our experiences also means looking for people who can invest in the same sector, and marketing is an important aspect too.”

Peruvian peasant women working in the potato fields. Credit: Milagros Salazar/IPS

By Sabina Zaccaro
ROME, Feb 24 2012 (IPS)

As the links between food security and climate change become increasingly inextricable, the necessity for sustainable agriculture is now a universal concern.

Smallholder farmers in the global South – who suffer most from changes in climate patterns and the degradation of natural resources, since they live and work in the most vulnerable landscapes – are in urgent need of sustainable agricultural technologies, a reality that was recognised at the annual meeting of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), which drew to a close in Rome on Thursday.

Despite ongoing economic and financial crises, developed and developing countries alike – represented by hundreds of development leaders and heads of state gathered in Rome for the 35th session of the Governing Council – committed 1.5 billion dollars to finance agriculture and rural development projects throughout the developing world.

During the two-day event, representatives from IFAD’s 167 member states addressed the connection between overcoming poverty and food insecurity, and discussed how to ensure food security to a growing population while simultaneously protecting the environment.

In December 2011, member states gave a boost to sustainable agriculture with 1.5 billion dollars in new contributions to IFAD.

Now, the U.N. agency says it is scaling up its efforts even further to better link climate-smart technologies and sustainable agriculture in more than 40 countries.

“To help implement IFAD’s environmental policy and climate change strategy, we have developed a groundbreaking initiative called the Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Programme, or ASAP, which will help channel (funds) into climate-smart, sustainable investments in poor, smallholder communities,” IFAD’s president Kanayo Nwanze announced in his opening statement at the conference.

Representatives of smallholders, family farmers, pastoralists and fishers from all over the world who gathered here ahead of the meeting called on leaders to jointly address the global challenges of food insecurity and climate change, and asked IFAD to place the needs of smallholders on the international agenda.

“One thing people need to understand is climate-smart agriculture,” Lindiwe Majele Sibanda, CEO of the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN), told IPS.

“We have the imperative to feed more mouths so we need to intensify our food production systems but this has got to be done in a sustainable way.”

She added that, though the agricultural sector is responsible for a huge percentage of greenhouse gas emissions, it also has the potential to retain some of those gases in the soil.

Though science has adapted many new techniques, there is no “one science fits all”; rather, technologies need to fit local needs and conditions in a kind of “package”, Sibanda said.

“There is no point in making seed available when (farmers) cannot afford fertilisers.We need to have a systematic approach,” she said, echoing the view of numerous farmers’ networks that economic investments and the transfer of knowledge to farmers need to be combined in order to affect change on the ground.

“Then there is the key role of farmers themselves,” Sibanda said. “They must have the assets for farming but these have been depleted in most cases by recurring droughts and floods. We have not built enough mechanisms to make sure that we absorb the risk and empower the farmers.”

According to Sibanda, while the link between agriculture and food security is clear, there is too little talk about the farmer herself.

“We need to put people first, and those people are farmers, particularly women farmers.”

She stressed that investments must be targeted towards empower the people who form the nexus of the entire food production system.

“Without putting the people who do the farming at the centre of that dialogue there is no ‘agriculture’ to talk about,” she said.

“Since its mandate is to support small-scale and landless farmers, we have demanded that IFAD support agroecology as the model agricultural method to feed the people and to save the planet,” Henry Saragih chairman of the Indonesian Peasant Union (known by the acronym SPI) and coordinator of the global farmers’ network La Via Campesina, told IPS.

Saragih also believes that utilising farmers’ knowledge of sustainable technologies and innovations is crucial in order to empower and strengthen small family farmers and their markets.

On Tuesday, U.S. technology billionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates announced nearly 200 million dollars in grants to smallholder farmers, channelled through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

These new grants will support a number of initiatives including breaking down gender barriers so women farmers can increase productivity; controlling contamination that affects 25 percent of world food crops; and creating an innovative system to monitor the effects of agricultural productivity on the population and environment.

In a discussion with delegates this week, Rwandan President Paul Kagame emphasised smallholder farmers’ key role in producing more food and overcoming environmental constraints in his country, where agricultural gross domestic product (GDP) has grown at an average of 8 per cent annually, ensuring food security and higher incomes for farmers.

Kagame challenged other African nations to do more to help the growth of their agricultural sector.

Listing the ingredients for “good agricultural policies” in Africa, Sibanda said that strong countries are “those who have committed to developing an investment framework; those who have met their 10 percent target of the national budget for agriculture (as laid out in the 2003 Maputo Declaration on Agriculture and Food Security); those who have allowed their agricultural sector to grow at a minimum of six percent per year; and those who have done infrastructure development and knowledge management, (supplying) farmers with the public services they need.”

With the next round of climate change talks scheduled for June at Rio+20, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Brazil, all delegates agreed on the critical importance of smallholder agriculture for climate solutions.

Rio+20 marks twenty years since the inauguration of the historical conference in the same city that first launched the multilateral agenda for sustainable development. For the first time in two decades, agriculture has emerged as a critical component in the climate change issue.

“As we go to Rio, let’s make sure that everybody appreciates that there (can be no) sustainable development without (sustainable) agriculture,” Sibanda said, adding that, though people have been “scared” of climate change for years, there is now ample evidence of the worst that is yet to come.

“The time for sustainable development talk is now,” she said.

“Whether you’re in a developed country or in a developing country you’re going to be impacted. The fact that food security is now on the global agenda means that we will all have to see how best can we make it happen despite the challenges we face. We’re calling for more investments in agriculture because food is a sovereign right of people,” she concluded.

(END)

Basic income security and access to social services can improve food production and consumption in the developing world, which can be boosted by South-South cooperation.

Decent jobs and social protection are effective instruments in addressing the issue of food insecurity, specifically for the nearly one billion people suffering from chronic hunger worldwide.

“Strategies that invest in decent and productive employment and social protection can accelerate economic growth, stimulate food production, and provide incomes to allow large parts of the population to exit poverty and food insecurity,” said Alette van Leur, director of the Sectoral Activities Department at the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

“We all know that jobs are the best way out of poverty, and these have to be decent jobs of course,” van Leur told IPS on the sideline of a forum to showcase innovative solutions and mechanisms to improve food security through decent work and social protection.

The forum was part of the fourth annual Global South-South Development Expo (GSSD Expo), a U.N. system-wide forum developed by the Special Unit for South-South Cooperation held in Rome Monday Dec. 5 through Friday Dec. 9.

“Food security is so well embedded in the decent work agenda – it is about the production of food but also the economic access to food, which requires cash for people who do not produce food themselves,” van Leur said.

The decent work agenda, developed by the ILO, includes creating jobs, guaranteeing rights at work, extending social protection and promoting social dialogue. “It is an extremely powerful strategy to improve the livelihood of people all around the globe; it is an integrated approach to development, it impacts on the lives of people through work but also working conditions,” she said.

The ILO is a tripartite constituency of workers, employers and governments working together to shape a social policy agenda in the South. “We don’t deal with high level government officials; we deal with people who stand with both feet on the ground and who actually work towards a better life for themselves and for their families.”

According to van Leur, the South-South cooperation experience is based on solidarity, on the exchange of experiences, in line with the expectations of workers, employers and governments, “who want to learn from each other on a solidarity basis.”

Vicenta Trotman is a community leader and a member of the Administrative Board of Rural Water Supply in the Ngäbe-Buglé indigenous territory of the No-Kribo region in Panama. She told IPS about her experience with bringing safe water to the most isolated part of the community, working exclusively with indigenous people and in cooperation with neighbouring communities.

Trotman said that 50 percent of the local population is actively involved and has benefited from the water and sanitation programme.

“Nine communities are involved in the project overall, and in my community, 35 out of 50 workers are women,” she said. The programme brings access to efficient water and sanitation services to the most excluded groups, through the participation of the entire community, who are trained to build their own water systems.

“Food insecurity is interlinked with virtually all of the other major challenges we face today: poverty, hunger, health, environment and climate change, social, political and economic inequality, gender and education. And the burden and the cost of food insecurity are being bourne most heavily by Southern countries,” Yiping Zhou, director of the Special Unit for South-South Cooperation, said this week at the GSSD Expo.

According to Yiping, the right policies, solutions and technologies are there already, but they are not available to those who need them the most. “What is most needed now is to find solutions to development challenges through capacity development and through greater social protections, among other things,” he said.

But in order for South-based solutions to food insecurity and to common development challenges to be sustainable and replicable, there is a need for a joint, global effort, not only in the South. “Partnership” seems to be the keyword here – between countries, within the United Nations system and multilateral institutions, and between civil society and the private sector.

The same call was reiterated last week at the global conference on aid effectiveness in Busan, South Korea.

“In Busan last week the developing countries were the dynamic force, they were there demanding that they own their programmes, and that basically the developed countries respect that and work with them; if they don’t have the capacity, then help them develop the capacity,” Brian Atwood, chair of the Development Assistance Committee at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), told IPS.

“Even the so called fragile states said they want to be judged on the basis of different criteria that knows who are better developed, who can actually achieve the MDGs. So I think we have seen a major shift to the South, there was a great recognition of South South cooperation in the Busan document and the idea that we should be complementing one another: North-South and South-South (cooperation),” he said.

“It is going to take a while for the outcome document to be read by everyone, but I think it will be seen as historic in the long run, we’ve established a new global partnership,” he added.

Some months back, the DAC passed a resolution about the need to enhance dialogue with the new emerging economies and new providers of assistance, without any required preconditions.

“We are listening carefully to developing countries who are telling us: we want you to implement the Paris principles (on aid effectiveness), the principles of ownership, alignment and harmonisation. And that message came through very loudly in Busan,” Atwood said.

As regards North-South cooperation, it will continue as long as there is poverty in the world, according to Atwood. “I hope we won’t need the DAC in fifty years, but poverty is a long-term challenge and we have to meet that challenge; the counties in the North feel an obligation but also an interest in having more growth and prosperity and more peace in the developing world.”

By - - and Sabina Zaccaro
ROME, Dec 6 2011 (IPS)

South-South cooperation can play a key role in boosting the economies of developing countries, but it is not going to replace North-South cooperation, says Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, president of the 66th session of the U.N. General Assembly.

Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser Credit: U.N. Photo/Mark Garten

The Qatari diplomat was interviewed by IPS as the fourth annual Global South-South Development Expo (GSSD Expo) opened Monday in Rome.

This year’s GSSD Expo, a U.N. system-wide forum developed by the Special Unit for South-South Cooperation, is hosted by the FAO from Dec. 5 to 9, and is meant to showcase concrete innovative solutions that demonstrate how hunger has been successfully tackled through South-South cooperation.

“South-South and triangular cooperation, backed by adequate funding, are key tools for tackling the development challenges of our time,” Al-Nasser said. “All such partnerships are particularly pertinent given the current and recent challenges facing our global economy and sustainable development. Among such challenges, guaranteeing food security for all is paramount.”

He said the Expo offers an opportunity to examine holistic approaches to the search for innovative and sustainable solutions to food insecurity: “It will enable us to exchange lessons learned and showcase successful Southern strategies and technologies for, among other things: improving agricultural productivity; increasing social protection and building the resilience of the most vulnerable; managing fragile ecosystems; improving nutrition; and combating diseases.”

Q: In its latest report last week, the ‘World Economic Situation and Prospects 2012?, the U.N. warned that the EU-U.S. economic crisis is threatening to spill over into developing countries. How can the developing world protect itself against this threat? A: The economic crisis is affecting the entire world. In the past, economic and social crises mainly had a regional or sub-regional range. Now the issue is global, it is not about the U.S. or the European markets. What is happening in the U.S. and in Europe is having effects on Latin America, Asia and Africa, and will certainly have an impact on development in these countries.

It is time for the United Nations to look at all this collectively and deal with that. This not only concerns the G20 (bloc of major industrial and emerging powers); this is the responsibility of the General Assembly. I am today focusing on this issue: last week two ambassadors were appointed as facilitators to work on a specific, very important event dealing with the financial crisis which is currently hurting people everywhere, all over the planet.

I’m hoping the General Assembly will see concrete results of this commitment by the first half of next year.

Q: What role can South-South cooperation play in boosting the economies of developing countries? Do you think that triangular and multilateral cooperation – as in IBSA (India, Brazil and South Africa), MERCOSUR (South America’s Southern Common Market) and ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) – need to be strengthened further among these member states? A: Yes of course. South-South cooperation today can play a major role in bringing all the South countries together, and sharing their experiences. At the same time it is also very important that developing countries do this with the support of the developed world.

Many Southern countries have lifted millions of people out of conditions of extreme poverty and hunger. These countries have at their disposal much knowledge and technical know-how. These can be put to further good use through enhanced South-South exchanges of information, experience and technology, with a view to raising agricultural productivity and to improving food distribution to the benefit of more people.

Through South-South solidarity, we can also learn from countries that are reforming customary norms and practices, in order to ensure that women are no longer denied equal access to land and other productive assets that contribute to food security. In doing so, women will be empowered and can gain their rightful place in society.

It is my hope that these exchanges, programmes and partnerships will be replicated and adapted widely.

Q: As the trend towards South-South cooperation continues, will this replace North-South cooperation in the future? Or is there need both for South-South and North-South cooperation? A: They complement each other. The South cannot work without the North and the North cannot work without the South. Complement is the key word here.

As president of the United Nations General Assembly, I am committed to promoting South-South and triangular cooperation, as an important part of building a united global partnership. Only such a partnership, based on open dialogue and mutual understanding, can enable efficient collective action in a globalised, inter-dependent world.

Q: What contribution has Qatar made towards South-South cooperation following the Second South Summit which was held in Doha in 2005? Is the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), of which Qatar is a member, a prime example of South-South Cooperation? And how successful has it been? A: It’s been very successful, yes. Qatar has been very active in regional and multilateral initiatives to promote South-South cooperation. I’ve been Permanent Representative of Qatar to the United Nations and personally contributed to a number of South-South cooperation initiatives.

My country believes in Southern cooperation and I think it one of the most active actors in South-South cooperation, especially in terms of encouraging developing countries to work together and share their experiences.

Qatar hosted the Second South Summit of the Group of 77 in 2005, where the South Fund for Development and Humanitarian Assistance was launched.

Excerpt:

By Sabina Zaccaro and - -
ROME, Nov 16 2011 (IPS)

Of the 17 ministers nominated Wednesday by Italy’s premier-designate Mario Monti, not one is a politician.

President Giorgio Napolitano appointed Monti, a former European commissioner, Sunday to form a government capable of implementing key economic reforms to weather the country’s worsening debt crisis. Italy’s public debt is currently stuck near 120 percent of GDP.

After consulting the political parties, trade unions and leading civil society groups over the last two days, Monti managed to win parliamentary backing Tuesday.

His government is expected to have an overwhelming majority in both houses, based on support promised by most of the political parties, with the exception of the separatist Northern League, a partner in Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s outgoing government.

The new “technocratic” cabinet, which will be made up of just 17 ministers, compared to Berlusconi’s 23, includes academics, representatives of financial institutions, and prominent members of the justice system, the military and the civil service.

The economy minister will be Monti himself, who is replacing the controversial Berlusconi, prime minister on and off for the last 18 years.

Some analysts say the lack of politicians in the new cabinet could weaken it and hamper its ability to gain the necessary support for unpopular measures. But Monti told reporters that this would actually strengthen the government.

“The absence of political personalities in the government will help rather than hinder a solid base of support in parliament and in the political parties, because it will remove one of the grounds for disagreement,” he said.

Monti said he would present his austerity programme to the Senate on Thursday. The aim is to reassure markets that Italy will ward off a default. But despite the fact that the prime minister-designate made fast progress in cobbled together his cabinet, investors remained nervous and Italy’s borrowing costs rose on Monday and Tuesday.

Last week’s jump of over seven percent in the yield on 10-year bonds triggered fears that Italy was heading in the same direction as other heavily indebted Eurozone countries like Greece, which probably accelerated Berlusconi’s resignation, according to analysts.

He stepped down as premier last weekend after both houses of Parliament passed emergency austerity measures.

“In a moment of particular difficulty for Italy, in a troubled global and European context, the country must win the challenge to redeem itself. Italy needs to return to being an element of strength and not weakness in the European Union, of which we were founders and in which we need to be protagonists,” Monti told reporters on Sunday.

Many of Italy’s debts are falling due soon. In 2012 alone, it will have to roll over more than 300 billion euros. The EU has already said that new measures will be required in order for Italy to balance its budget, as promised, by 2013.

According to Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel, “Italy has great economic strength, but Italy does also have a very high level of debt and that has to be reduced in a credible way in the years ahead.”

In the case of Greece, eurozone leaders say the solution is greater austerity.

In response to Europe’s requests, right before Berlusconi resigned, his government approved a new ‘stability programme’.

This included stringent measures, such as an overall fiscal adjustment of 59.8 billion Euros, around 3.4 percent of GDP; cuts in central government expenditure and reforms of the tax and welfare systems; and tougher eligibility requirements for pensions, like a gradual increase in the retirement age for women working in the private sector, from 60 to 65, to align it with that of men by 2026.

While the reaction of the markets to Italy’s new government will become clear over the next few days and weeks, the response of civil society groups has already been positive.

Some key women’s groups, which have organised huge protests this year against Berlusconi’s disrespectful attitude towards women, had explicitly asked Monti to ensure a greater female presence on the new cabinet. “In this time of rebuilding for the country, competent women must play an active role,” they said in a statement.

Women in Italy have been hit hard by the crisis. The rate of female employment is currently 46.1 percent, compared to a European average of 58.2 percent.

Three of the 17 ministers are women. Although this is a small proportion, they will all hold key posts. Former prefect Anna Maria Cancellieri is the new minister of the interior; Elsa Fornero, the new minister of labour and welfare, is an economics professor at the University of Turin; and former judge Paola Severino is the first woman justice minister in Italy’s history.

Nicoletta Dentico, a gender expert at the women’s network Se Non Ora Quando? (If Not Now, When?), told IPS that the new prime minister “understands the pathological lack of a female presence in Italy’s politics compared to the European average, and responded to our appeal accordingly.”

The three women ministers will hold powerful positions, Dentico said: “Women are being given the responsibility of the law, social policies, and security. These are the most pressing issues in the country at this moment.”

According to Dentico, the urgency of the financial crisis means new social measures and strengthening the rule of law are essential. “As we are facing economic troubles, we have to establish new rules and laws, and fight tax evasion, since these are all contributing to the risk of financial default. And these areas are now in the hands of competent women.”

Another decision that was welcomed by civil society is the creation of a ministry for development cooperation and integration, to be headed up by Professor Andrea Riccardi, the founder of the catholic international aid Community of Sant’Egidio.

Italian NGOs welcomed the decision as a sign that development aid would be revived.

“The introduction of this ministry is a clear sign of the will to re-launch international cooperation as a key component of Italy’s foreign politics,” said Oxfam International Italy in a communiqué. “We hope that this will open a new era of solidarity, in which Italy, currently at the bottom of the European donors list, can respect its international commitments.”

Italy’s development aid has been slashed by 50 percent over the last three years.

*/Attention editors: This story corrects paragraphs 15 and 16 in the article moved earlier on Nov. 16, 2011.

Excerpt:

By Sabina Zaccaro
ROME, Oct 12 2011 (IPS)

Civil society organisations and global farmers’ networks are gathered in Rome this week to ask governments to stop the “disastrous practice of land grabbing”, ahead of next week’s Committee on World Food Security.

Outside the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) building in Rome. Credit: Crocevia

After six years of negotiations involving governments, international organisations and civil society groups, this session is expected to adopt voluntary guidelines on responsible governance of land and other natural resources. These guidelines would protect and strengthen access to land, fisheries and forests for indigenous peoples and small-scale producers, especially women.

According to farmers’ organisations, the guidelines currently under negotiation could become an instrument “to keep financial speculation out of peoples’ lands, water and forests and to overcome a system of governance that facilitates the takeover of peoples’ natural resources by corporate investors and other powerful actors”.

Delegates from the global farmers’ network la Via Campesina, the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty and the Italian Committee for Food Sovereignty are taking part in the negotiations.

The issue seems most crucial now that the global food and financial crises have made maintaining livelihoods impossible for farmers, their communities and small-scale producers unless their land is preserved.

A rampant practice

A recent report by Oxfam identified 227 million hectares of land, an area the size of northwest Europe, as having been reportedly sold or licensed – largely in Africa and mostly to international investors – through thousands of secret deals since 2001.

Earlier this year the World Bank identified 56 million hectares of “grabbed” land, again predominantly in Africa.

The issue implicates Europe and the U.S equally.

According to a recent report on land grabbing, released earlier this month by Friends of the Earth, more than 60 percent of land consumed in Europe is imported, while U.S. demand for imported land increased by 100 million hectares between 1997 and 2004.

The report stated, “Europe uses the equivalent of 1.5 times its own area in land. Germany and the UK are among the top land import dependent countries, each importing more than 80 million hectares a year. Average land consumption in the EU is 1.3 hectares per capita, while countries such as China and India use less than 0.4 hectares per capita. The U.S. consumes more than three hectares per capita, four times as much as India.”

In many cases, land is being used to grow crops for biofuel markets.

Widespread, long-lasting impacts

“We want to make sure that governments understand our position on the disastrous (impacts) of land grabbing on international investments in agriculture,” Kalissa Regier, youth vice president of Canada’s National Farmers Union (NFU) and member of La Via Campesina, told IPS.

“The situation is particularly disastrous for young farmers. Every time farmland is (taken) from the rural community, it can never be regained by families or the younger generation who once had a chance to be part of their land, part of their families’ heritage.”

Areas where farmers have secure land tenure and access to arable land have decreased incidence of food insecurity, she added. But once land is lost “through land grabbing, corporate investments in agriculture or government investments in farmland”, it cannot be regained, she said.

Regier, an organic grain producer in Canada, said the impacts of this issue would last for hundreds of years and stressed that land grabbing is not limited to the global South, but that people around her were experiencing it as well.

Land grabbing is “manifesting itself differently depending on the social and economic structures” in different regions, she said. ” In Africa, Asia and South America, you see the disastrous impacts of poverty, hunger and displacement of communities,” while North America has seen many of its youth shift from rural areas into cities alongside huge amounts of foreign investment in farmland.

Concerns over implementing guidelines

Olivier De Schutter, the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food, recently urged the adoption of common guidelines on land governance.

He stressed that “governments should be wary of speculation and concentration of ownership when land rights are transferred to private investors to develop farmland”. He added, “Harmful investments to the detriment of local populations – or land grabbing – can only be warded off if we first secure the underlying rights of farmers, herders and fisherfolk.”

On Tuesday, farmers’ delegates in Rome submitted the Dakar Appeal, a document prepared during the 2011 World Social Forum in Senegal, to the president of the U.N. Committee on Food Security (CFS).

The appeal, which calls on governments to put an end to land grabbing and urges the CFS to reject the World Bank principles for responsible agricultural investment, is endorsed by over 700 organisations worldwide.

Farmers are also extremely concerned about the implementation of guidelines.

“We are participating (in high-level discussions) here… but finally we want this paper to be reflected in the life of the woman who depends on fish from the lake, whose children go to sleep hungry because the fish in the lake have been taken by a big company from another country,” Rehema Bavuma, a Ugandan delegate from the World Forum of Fish Harvesters and Fish Workers, told IPS.

Bavuma works on the bank of Lake Victoria, Uganda.

“Traditionally, women and men near the lake have depended (exclusively) on fish. The men fished and the women cooked or smoked the fish, for eating or selling to their neighbours.”

However, Bavuma said, this is not happening anymore. “They still live near the lake but they are not allowed to fish because the government has given rights to big companies to take fish from the lake and sell it, but local people cannot afford to buy it, as it is very expensive.”

“These people have no food, no jobs, no water and no income. If our governments negotiate (guidelines) on behalf of their peoples, we want to see (those rules) adopted and implemented.” She added that land grabbing affects water supplies and other resources as well.

Farmers’ networks are expecting governments to take a strong position in the negotiations on land tenure by openly opposing land grabs and ensuring communities’ rights and human rights are protected.

“We expect governments negotiating land tenure to approve strict guidelines that can rescue farmers from the hands of private speculators and safeguard small producers’ and local communities’ access to and control over natural resources, including land, water and forests,” said Mamadou Ba, of the Conseil National de Concertation et de Coopération des Ruraux, Senegal.

Outcomes of the FAO negotiations are expected by Friday.

Excerpt:

By Sabina Zaccaro
ROME, Oct 10 2011 (IPS)

Food price volatility featuring high prices is likely to continue and probably increase next year, making poor farmers even more vulnerable to poverty and food insecurity, the global report on food insecurity released Monday by the United Nations’ three Rome-based food agencies predicts.

Prices rise as food gets more scarce. Credit: © FAO

“The main reason for increased price volatility is that supply production cannot catch up with demand,” FAO senior economist George Rapsomanikis told IPS. “What is happening is that we have a steady increase in demand, mainly due to increase in the population, and also a change in the diet of population in emerging economies who are gradually changing their diets, including more meat and more grain.

“On the other side, production cannot catch up with consumption. The global stock levels are becoming lower, lower than they used to be ten years ago and if there is an external shock in the market, this is going to generate volatility. So tighter markets means more volatility in the future.”

High and volatile food prices are identified as major contributing factors in food insecurity at the global level. Price volatility makes both smallholder farmers and poor consumers increasingly vulnerable to poverty while short-term price changes can have long-term impacts on development, the report says.

Changes in income due to price swings and decreased food consumption can reduce children’s intake of key nutrients during the first thousand days of life from conception.

But price swings affect countries, populations and households very differently. According to the report, the most exposed are the poor and the weak, particularly in Africa, where the number of undernourished increased by 8 percent between 2007 and 2008.

“Countries that import food are going to be the most vulnerable. Low income, food importing countries are going to suffer for this, mainly because they are going to experience very high import prices. And they cannot plan their own future – if the world prices are volatile, then it is very difficult to plan,” Rapsomanikis said.

The report also finds that further growth in biofuels will place additional demands on the food system.

Food price volatility may increase over the next decade due to stronger linkages between agricultural and energy markets, according to Rapsomanikis. “There are markets and markets. Brazil utilises sugarcane to produce ethanol; in the European Union we have oil seeds; in the U.S. we have maize.

“The U.S. are the largest importer of maize, and about 30 percent of the maize production becomes ethanol. Since both energy markets and the food markets use maize as an input, if there is a shock in the oil market, the shock will be transmitted quite rapidly to the food market.”

The report also stresses that investment in agriculture remains critical to sustainable, long-term food security and asks governments to facilitate and increase investments. “The first thing that governments should do is to increase investments on the agricultural sector,” the FAO expert told IPS.

“According to our earlier estimates about investments, in order for production to meet demands, investments need to increase in developing countries by about 50 percent. And this includes investments in inputs, fertilisers and extension services; it is about accessing facilities, market, storage, it is about the whole food system. And there is also a need for investments in public goods like transport infrastructure, communication infrastructure and large scale irrigation projects, especially in Africa.”

Key areas for directing such investments, the report says, should be cost-effective irrigation, improved land-management practices and better seeds developed through agricultural research. “That would help reduce the production risks facing farmers, especially smallholders, and mitigate price volatility.”

The private sector can be of help as well. According to FAO, part of these investments can come from official development assistance (ODA), but that is not going to be enough, because an investment gap remains.

“ODA is being reduced and the share of agriculture is only four percent,” Rapsomanikis said. “What is needed above and beyond ODA and the national expenditure on agriculture, is the involvement of the private sector. And not only companies, farmers are private sector. Countries should create an environment to increase private investments in order to achieve productivity growth, through good structural and financial policies, and effective government systems. This would create and enabling environment for people to invest.”

But smallholders are facing so many constraints that it is hard to see them as investors. “Many smallholder farmers are not integrated in the market, they do not have access to output market and even to inputs, to technology, to financing and credit. This is where governments and the private sector could help – through public-private partnerships that provide transportation infrastructure to farmers who are in remote areas, the report suggests.

FAO’s best estimate of the number of hungry people for 2010 remains at 925 million. For the 2006-2008 period FAO calculates the number of hungry were 850 million. The report says “methodology FAO uses for calculating the prevalence of hunger is currently under revision,” and so no estimates have been produced for 2011.

Excerpt:

The track record of the newly elected Brazilian chief of FAO is a promise in itself for civil society.

José Graziano da Silva Credit: FAO/Alessia Pierdomenico

Representatives from the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organisation’s 191 member countries convened on Sunday for a secret ballot vote that designed Brazilian Josè Graziano da Silva as the new director general elect of the Rome-based agency.

He took 92 votes out of 180, beating former Spanish foreign minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos, who received 88 votes. The other four candidates, each nominated by his government, were Franz Fischler (Austria), Indroyono Soesilo (Indonesia), Mohammad Saeid Noori Naeini (Iran) and Abdul Latif Rashid (Iraq).

The new chief succeeds Senegalese Jacques Diouf, who was first elected in 1993. The new director-general takes over in January 2012 and will remain in charge until July 2015. Following a recently revised rule, he is only eligible for one additional four-year term, while Diouf has been elected to three consecutive six-year terms.

Economist Jose Graziano da Silva, who was FAO’s regional representative for Latin America and the Caribbean, had served as food security minister under former Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. In that position, he played a key role in the “Zero Hunger” government initiative that brought about a significant decrease in malnutrition in Brazil.

Working closely with civil society, and recognising the central role of women in agriculture, the programme contributed to lifting an estimated 24 million people out of extreme poverty, and to reducing malnutrition by 25 percent in the country, according to official figures.

Graziano’s past success gives hope to civil society organisations, who largely expect an era of consultation and inclusion.

“By supporting smallholder agriculture, Brazil is tackling hunger successfully. We expect Graziano to bring the same approach to the FAO,” Marco de Ponte, secretary general of ActionAid Italy, told IPS.

“In the Diouf era the common thinking was that transferring technical knowledge in agriculture was enough to fight hunger,” de Ponte said. “But hunger is largely determined by political choices related to the food market, and hunger grows where you have unfair access to production.”

According to de Ponte, FAO should definitely go beyond the prominently technical role it has had so far, and participate in the debate on economic, trade and financial policies that determine prices.

Of course this cannot be done without consensus by the member states. “The new FAO chief will have to get members’ agreement on the central role of farmers in the fight against hunger in developing countries,” said Francesco Petrelli, president of aid agency Oxfam Italy.

In fact the election showed a clear division between donor and developing countries.

“Divisions became clear in the election process,” Graziano admitted. “But countries of the North, which are the most important donors, are not against me; after the election they all committed to supporting the organisation.”

“We have to work on a minimum consensus so this organisation is not paralysed by these divisions,” he said.

In his first speech to the assembly, Graziano said the election was not a North-South clash, but an exercise in democracy. He thanked Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff and her predecessor Lula for supporting his candidature, as well as the block of Latin American, African and non-aligned countries that voted for him. Europe supported his main rival, Moratinos.

He will certainly not miss support from civil society organisations, as a result of his own inclusive efforts made in Brazil.

“The consultative organ of the Brazilian presidency on nutrition and food security is an example of democracy and inclusion of civil society, in respect of everybody’s roles,” Antonio Onorati from the International Planning Committee (IPC), a global network of NGOs and civil society groups involved in agricultural issues, told IPS.

Consultative meetings with civil society have been stuck over the last three years at the FAO, Onorati said. “We have all known Graziano for many years in his previous positions, and we are confident that a serious cooperation will start again within FAO,” he said.

The DG election opened the organisation’s biennial assembly, which takes place as food issues, and international price volatility, feature prominently on the global agenda.

In their 2011-2020 Agricultural Outlook, FAO and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) forecast that real prices for cereals could grow on average by 20 per cent over the coming decade, compared to 2001-2010. Farm output is expected to grow 1.7 per cent annually over the next decade, down from the 2.6 per cent growth rate of the past 10 years.

Agriculture ministers from the G20 major industrialised and emerging nations agreed on an action plan last week in Paris to curb prices. In his first meeting with journalists on Monday, Graziano said it is impossible to predict how long high prices will last, but expressed the hope that the G20 action plan would help, if implemented.

He also stressed the need for a stable financial system as financial markets had ‘contaminated commodity markets’. The FAO will play a greater role in helping developing countries cope with food price volatility, he said, which “is even worse than high prices because of the uncertainty it causes for consumers and producers.”

Explaining priorities ahead, Graziano said FAO will give priority to Africa and play a central role in water resources management. He also pledged to quickly deliver the organisation’s long awaited cost-effective reform.

By Sabina Zaccaro
ROME, Apr 2 2011 (IPS)

The influx of migrants arriving from Libya and other African countries has created an unprecedented humanitarian crisis in southern Italy.

Credit: Save the Children

Between Mar. 26 and 28, nearly 830 migrants reportedly arrived there, including 80 women and 12 children from Tripoli and Misrata in Libya. But most of them came from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan and Somalia.

In the last week of March, 794 migrants sailing from Tripoli landed on the island of Linosa, 42 km north-east to Lampedusa. Amongst them were 90 women and 20 children under five, and 15 unaccompanied minors, of these five girls. They have all been transferred to Sicily, where a further 500 migrants landed Thursday.

Compared to the larger figures of people fleeing Libya since the revolt against Muammar Gaddafi erupted in late February, the number of migrants to Italy is not very high, though it is generating panic across the country.

According to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), the total number of people who have left Libya since the beginning of the conflict amounted to 398,652 as of Mar. 29, including 202,273 who migrated to Tunisia, 160,455 to Egypt and 18,137 to Niger as well as lesser numbers to the Sudan, Algeria and Chad.

On Mar. 28 and 29 the daily numbers of people crossing to Tunisia and Egypt were at more than 4,000 and 2,000 respectively.

Italy only reluctantly joined Western-led military operations earlier in March, allowing seven of its military bases to be used for airstrike missions to the North African country. “It is not through actions of war that we can make Gaddafi leave, but rather through strong international pressure to encourage defections by people close to him,” Italy’s foreign minister Franco Frattini told a national private television this week.

Frattini announced that he will meet members of Libya’s rebel Interim National Council in Rome next week. “We have close contact with the rebels in Benghazi, where our consulate is always open,” he said. Italy’s official position is that the way forward is not warfare but diplomatic pressure to bring about defections among members of Gaddafi’s inner circle, and persuade him to go into exile.

Libyans make up only a small fraction of the migrants landing in Italy in recent weeks. According to the Ministry of Interior, about 22,000 people from North Africa, mainly Tunisia, have arrived on Lampedusa and Sicily by boat.

While the majority were transferred to Sicily and other southern regions, or managed to escape controls, as of Mar. 27, 5,217 were still in Lampedusa. About 350 are unaccompanied children.

The Italian authorities have called the recent wave of migration across the Mediterranean a “humanitarian emergency” and have requested the assistance of the European Union including its external borders control agency Frontex in stemming the migration flows.

While the influx was largely predictable following the recent uprisings in the Arab region, the Italian government was mostly unprepared to handle the situation.

Migrants have been stuck in Lampedusa for weeks, waiting to be transferred to other places across the country. The refugee centre there can only accommodate 850 people.

Many have not been provided with the most basic humanitarian assistance, Amnesty International said.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi visited the island on Tuesday and pledged the government would “clear Lampedusa within 48-60 hours”; however, it is still not clear where all the people will be transferred to.

Large ferries arrived at Lampedusa on Friday morning for the announced evacuation, but the boarding operations were suspended due to bad sea conditions.

Migrants in Lampedusa have not been provided with even the most basic humanitarian assistance such as shelter, medical care, mats, blankets and access to sanitary facilities, Amnesty has found.

There are no showers, no toilets and no shelters. “Around 4,000 people are currently sleeping outdoor,” Amnesty’s Charlotte Phillips told IPS. “Despite efforts by aid agencies on the ground, most Tunisians — already hit by poverty or violence in their country — have found themselves without the most basic of (sanitary) provisions.”

According to Phillips, the humanitarian crisis has been determined by the bad management of the situation. “No doubt it could have been avoided,” she said.

Most of the migrants interviewed by human rights organisations explained they left their countries in search of international protection; others have fled from tension and violence, or an untenable situation. Many have expressed the desire to continue their journey on to other European countries.

Humanitarian agencies fear that refugees are not given access to fair asylum procedures, because of the chaotic situation in Lampedusa, and that the government can decide on mass forced deportations without consideration of individual cases.

“The Italian authorities should also not assume that people arriving in Lampedusa are economic migrants,” Phillips said.

And this is true particularly for those who may be particularly vulnerable – such as pregnant women, children and individuals in need of medical assistance.

Approximately 350 unaccompanied children are in Lampedusa at the moment. One hundred of them have escaped controls and are now wandering the island, alone and exposed to bad weather conditions, according to the international charity Save the Children.

“The most urgent measure required for the protection of the children is the immediate transfer of unaccompanied children and those in family groups to the mainland,” said Carlotta Bellini, child protection manager at Save the Children. “Unaccompanied minors should be placed in residential care facilities for children which guarantee acceptable living conditions.”

Excerpt:

By Sabina Zaccaro
ROME, Feb 19 2011 (IPS)

The trial of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on charges of underage prostitution has just taken a turn that some commentators are calling an appropriate twist of fate: the trial, due to begin on April 6, will be adjudicated by a panel of female judges.

The Prime Minister was officially indicted on Tuesday on charges of engaging in sexual intercourse with a 17-year-old, undocumented girl from Morocco. Berlusconi is also accused of abuse of power.

Judge Cristina Di Censo, from the Milan tribunal, ruled that Berlusconi should be sent to an immediate trial, accepting the prosecutors’ argument that the strength of the evidence against Berlusconi was ‘obvious’.

This evidence does not necessarily mean that there is culpability on the part of the Prime Minister – which will be determined in court – but that the circumstantial evidence is based on a solid foundation.

The trial will be presided over by three female judges; Giulia Tutti, Carmen D’Elia, and Orsolina De Cristofaro. All three have a solid reputation in the judicial community, having conducted delicate trials of national importance in recent years.

The judges were chosen by an automatic selection mechanism.

“The selection criteria for judges are not discretionary,” Lanfranco Tenaglia, former magistrate and member of the Superior Council of the Judiciary, told IPS.

“As soon as the judge for preliminary investigation ruled for an immediate trial, the file was sent to the computer of the penal chancery of the court, which automatically assigned the case to judges in the two sections accountable for public administration,” he explained. “It identified the first panel available, and the first available date for the hearing.”

The first hearing will be held on a Wednesday, a working day for Parliament. “Berlusconi’s lawyers – who are also parliamentarians – will certainly claim that they have official duties to attend to on that day, under a ‘legitimate impediment’ law. If decision about date was taken discretionally, the president of the tribunal would have surely chosen to have the hearing on Saturday or Monday,” Tenaglia said.

“The attribution procedure is totally transparent, and the documents publicly accessible. Any other choice, non-automatic, would have been illegitimate,” he added.

Berlusconi’s political supporters consider the female panel to be a ‘controlled manoeuvre’. His critics see it as a kind of just reckoning.

There are 4,071 female magistrates in Italy, who comprise 45 percent of the profession, and the number is rising. More than 60 percent of winners of the last public national contest for magistrates were women. The leading positions are limited, with just 13 percent women.

In Milan, the number of female magistrates surpasses that of males – women comprise 53 percent of magistrates in that city.

Senator Vincenzo Vita, from the leading opposition party, told IPS that Berlusconi must face a fair trial as any other citizen would, without using his position to avoid or overcome the law.

Under Italian law, the prime minister can continue to hold office during trial, “but in order to save the country from this political and social impasse, and to restore institutional credibility at national and international levels,” Vita explained, he believes that the prime minister should resign and early elections be held. Berlusconi’s mandate currently ends in 2013.

“This is not a duel between court and parliament,” said Tenaglia. “Magistrates are doing what they are required to do by the law. Towards a situation of alleged crime, they have to investigate; it would be grave if the magistrates had decided to stop the examination – they would violate the principle of equality (of all citizens before the law).”

This is an unprecedented case in Italian judiciary history, Tenaglia said. “Of course, a government is endorsed by the parliament, but towards an eventual condemnation, the prime minister should take a step back, resign, and focus on his defence before the law.”

Excerpt:

By Sabina Zaccaro
ROME, Feb 17 2011 (IPS)

While a handful of young sex workers have been under the spotlight in the weeks following a high-profile sex scandal involving Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, tens of thousands remain invisible victims of human trafficking.

A sex worker near the central station in Rome. Credit: Pier Paolo Cito/Save the Children

The investigation involves 14 women in total. Many of them are young migrants who lived in apartments on the outskirts of Milan that were allegedly paid for by Berlusconi.

These girls are the visible faces of an otherwise invisible form of slavery: prostitution. At least 50,000 victims of trafficking received protection and assistance between 2000 and 2008, according to a 2010 report on trafficking by Save the Children Italy. In all 4,466 were unaccompanied minor migrants coming from Romania, Egypt, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan.

The majority of victims of sexual trafficking are undocumented migrants from countries spanning the globe, aged 15 to 18 years old.

“When we started our work in the nineties, they came mostly from Eastern Europe, Albania, Romania, Moldavia,” Carla Corso, founder of the Committee for Civil Rights of Prostitutes told IPS. The group offers protection and provides shelters to victims of slavery and sexual exploitation in northeast Italy.

“Today they still come from Romania but also from Nigeria and Colombia; there is also a growing group of young Chinese on our streets at night, but it is very difficult to get in touch with them as the Chinese community is quite inaccessible.”

Romanian women are difficult to approach as well. “Since Romania has joined the European Union, the number of Romanian girls sexually exploited included in protection programmes has fallen drastically,” Emiliana Baldoni, researcher and author told IPS.

“Social assistants find it harder to get in touch with victims and accompany them out of the exploitation system; this is something rights associations are considering carefully,” she said.

Some victims, though, have found the courage to denounce their exploiters.

“Women who collaborate with the police can access social protection programmes and obtain a one-year residence permit; it is the starting point for a new life,” Corso told IPS.

Trafficking has become more subtle in recent years, said Baldoni.

“Coercion strategies are always more subtle and sophisticated. Extreme forms of intimidation, abduction, physical violence, and rape are less frequent than in the past. Victims are subjugated mainly through deceptive behaviour, blackmail, and affective and psychological manipulation often not recognised by the victim,” she explained.

In 2008, Berlusconi’s government sharpened the law against prostitution with penalties and jail for both prostitutes and their clients on the streets. Women’s rights groups say that the new laws only make the condition of invisible slaves worse, allowing traffickers to move them from the streets to private apartments without police interference.

“This government approved repressive and violent laws to combat street prostitution,” Corso told IPS. “But it’s okay if prostitutes frequent the corridors of power. This remains a double-moral country: under daylight, you have to be irreprehensible; at night, you can do anything you want and say it is ‘private’.”

“Party girls are victims as well as prostitutes on the streets – victims of a system that forces them to pass through the beds of powerful men if they want to get success. The only difference is they sell their bodies to buy Prada bags, while their (street) colleagues do that for food.”

Excerpt:

By Sabina Zaccaro
ROME, Dec 6 2010 (IPS)

Food production will have to increase by 70 percent to feed the expected world population of 9 billion by 2050, says a report released Monday by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). Agricultural output in developing countries will have to double, the report says.

Credit:

Rural poverty rates have dropped only slightly in the last decade in South Asia, home to the world’s largest number of rural poor, about 500 million. Most of them are considered extremely poor.

Only 11 million people in Latin America and the Caribbean are reported to live in extreme poverty, and six million in the Middle East and North Africa. But the largest percentage increases in the number of hungry people in 2009 relative to 2008 were in the Middle East and North Africa, 14 percent, and in Latin America and the Caribbean, 13 percent.

Volatile food prices, the effects of climate change, and a range of natural resource constraints will further complicate the fight to rural poverty, according to the report.

The report also points out that over the past ten years, 350 million rural people managed to escape desperate poverty, though global poverty remains a predominantly rural phenomenon. About 70 percent of the world’s 1.4 billion extremely poor people live in rural areas.

The report notes that over the past decade, extreme poverty in the rural areas of developing countries has dropped from 48 percent to 34 percent. The greatest improvement is in East Asia, particularly China.

The number of extreme poor in this region fell by about two-thirds over the past decade, from 365 million to 117 million, as did the rate of extreme poverty, from 44 to 15 percent.

The study points out that changes in agricultural markets are leading to new opportunities for smallholder farmers to boost productivity.

“Ongoing changes in agricultural markets offer new hope that major progress can be made in combating rural poverty,” Ed Heinemann, who led the team of researchers told IPS. “The rapid growth of urban centres, particularly in capital cities, and of urban populations’ incomes means a growing demand for higher value products, and opens the possibility to access to more remunerative market for smallholders.

“To push this positive process, governments, international institutions and donors should invest in rural areas and help rural farmers to improve their infrastructure and governance, and to reduce their transaction costs,” Heinemann said. “But these actors also need to have a mentoring role to help poor rural people avoid and manage the risks they face – from natural disasters to insecurity of access to land, and greater volatility of food prices.”

The report says the situation for women farmers – who produce most of the food that is consumed locally in rural areas – hasn’t changed much since its 2001 report.

Women face inadequate access to land tenure, credit and equipment, and market opportunities remain limited. In particular:

– Men’s landholdings average almost three times the average of women’s landholdings globally; fertiliser is more intensively applied on men’s plots; an analysis of credit schemes in five African countries found that women received less than a tenth of the credit received by men smallholders.

– In most developing countries, rural women’s triple responsibilities – farm work, household chores and earning cash – often add up to a 16-hour workday. Women continue to lack access to important infrastructure services and appropriate technologies to ease their workloads.

– Women-owned businesses receive far fewer services and far less support than those owned by men. In Uganda, women’s enterprises face substantially higher barriers to entry, although those that exist are generally at least as productive and efficient in terms of value added per worker. In Guatemala, women hold only 3 percent of snow pea production contracts but contribute more than a-third of total field labour and virtually all processing labour.

Excerpt:

By Sabina Zaccaro
ROME, May 24 2010 (IPS)

Her husband died last year, but “he will be forever a guardian of biodiversity.”

'Guardian of Biodiversity' from Brazil, Rena Martins Farias. Credit: Roberto Faidutti/IPS

“He was a pioneer in the conservation of wild plant genetic resources and he devoted his professional career to the efficient conservation of endemic seeds; but he was also an inspirational teacher and his legacy will continue to inspire botanists and scientists for the years to come,” his wife Maria Estrella Tortosa told IPS.

Gomez-Campo was considered the father of Spanish gene banks. In 1966 he established in Madrid the first ever gene bank devoted to the conservation of wild plant species.

On Saturday Gomez-Campo was posthumously made ‘Guardian of Diversity’ for the Mediterranean, a yearly award assigned by Bioversity International (BI) to farmers, scientists, and activists who have devoted their lives to safeguarding cultural and agricultural diversity.

BI organised in Rome, Biodiversity Week (20-23 May), to discuss the key role of biodiversity in agriculture.

Thanks to Gomez-Campo’s work the gene bank in Madrid preserves today seeds of 354 endangered species and subspecies, which represent almost 24 percent of the endangered wild plants in Spain. “Many of his historic collaborators have now opened new seed banks linked through a seed bank network all over Spain, and botanic gardens that follow his conservation method,” Tortosa said.

After his retirement in 2003, he continued travelling all over the world to talk about the importance of seed conservation and explain the use of the ultra-dry storage technology he had developed over 40 years. “The Food and Agriculture Organisation has strongly encouraged the adoption of this method in all the seed banks in the world. All this will keep his work alive,” Tortosa added.

Brazilian Rena Martins Farias is also a fellow ‘guardian’ who has been conserving and using plant genetic resources for the past 40 years.

In her childhood, she says, she was enchanted by the colours and flavours of foods. One of the first graduates of Birmingham University’s course on plant genetic resources, in the 1970s, Farias has been collecting cereals, beans and other legumes in the Mediterranean area and later in Portugal, where she worked for years on the conservation of Portugal’s native diversity.

“In the beginning very few women approached this profession,” Farias told IPS. “Over the years the number of women increased, although they used to work mainly as collectors in the gene banks.”

“This was not my path, I like to travel and work with people on the ground. Now that I am retired and dedicated to teaching at the senior university, I miss so much being in the field, collecting, working with the farmers, investigating why they conserve a particular crop in that way… you have so much to learn from farmers.”

The Third Global Biodiversity Outlook released earlier this month by the Convention on Biological Diversity states that basic services will be lost unless biodiversity is seriously conserved. The global rate of extinction is 1,000 times higher than it should be, the report says, and this confirms the failure of governments to reach a significant reduction in the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010.

Governments, particularly those in developing countries, may fail farmers, but they, nevertheless, continue with their meticulous work of preserving biodiversity.

“I am a farmer’s son, and I learned about the characteristics of pasture plants and their use while herding sheep and goats with my father along the mountain paths,” Hrou Abouchrif from Morocco told IPS. As a young shepherd he learned about traditional grazing techniques which favour the natural regeneration of pasture plants.

Today he is the director of ADRAR, an association that promotes social development and protection of environment in the Eastern High Atlas and Ifrane regions of Morocco. In the two decades of fieldwork here, Abouchrif has contributed to conserving medicinal and aromatic plants.

“I am so delighted in joining the renowned researchers who have received the award today,” he told IPS. “This gives me new energy to come back to my mountains and keep on the work of biodiversity preservation with my fellow farmers, in my village. They are the population to which I belong and I think it is my duty to stay there, preserve their culture and not let it disappear.”

Excerpt:

By Sabina Zaccaro
ROME, May 21 2010 (IPS)

Biodiversity in agriculture is about culture. Traditional knowledge and culture are as important as research and investment, say farmers, researchers and academics gathered in Rome for the International Day for Biodiversity on Saturday.

Carlo Petrini, the Mayor of Rome Gianni Alemanno and Emile Frison visiting the demo veg garden at the Settimana della Biodiversità. Credit: Bioversity International

Bioversity points out that there are about 30,000 edible plant species, of which three — rice, wheat and maize — provide 60 percent of calories for human beings. But the value of these staples is hardly recognised.

“When you talk about biodiversity people around the table are essentially from ministries of environment, and they come from a background of nature conservation and protection,” director-general of Bioversity International Emile Frison tells IPS. “For them, traditionally, agriculture has been the enemy, the one that encroaches on the environment.

“What we realise today is that there is much greater attention to biodiversity in agricultural ecosystems and also to agricultural biodiversity itself. We can no longer just care about protected areas, we must look at how we can make the entire biodiversity more useful to people.”

The international year on biodiversity is hardly the time to forget agricultural biodiversity and the farmers who sustain it, says Antonio Onorati of the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty, a global network of civil society organisations concerned with food sovereignty issues and programmes.

As not just the custodians of biodiversity but its creators, farmers ask “to be responsible for the diversity of what we plant, producing our seeds, creating new varieties in cooperation with researchers,” Onorati said. Participatory plant breeding, as this is sometimes called, aims to ensure that research is directly relevant to farmers’ needs.

Researchers increasingly recognise that traditional knowledge is a value. The traditional farmers’ system of exchanging seeds — now overwhelmed by industrial production — is key to maintaining traditional varieties that can better adapt to new climatic conditions, . Frison says.

“We must give voice to the food communities,” says Carlo Petrini, founder of Slow Food International that seeks to promote environmentally friendly modes of production, natural resources and biodiversity conservation. Slow Food International based in Italy initiated Terra Madre (Mother Earth), an annual world meeting of food communities that gathered farmers and food producers from 155 countries last year.

“The virtuous conservation practices of thousands of food communities can really compete with the big economic entities, and with the market,” says Petrini. “In this sense they are an economic subject, not a political subject, though they are not heard by decision-making powers.”

Traditional farmers’ knowledge should be preserved and transmitted to future generations, says Petrini. “The knowledge and the memory of humble people are extraordinary, and they must be transmitted to future generations; they will serve as a granary of knowledge when, one day, we will be affected by shortage of ideas,” Petrini told IPS.

Women can have a big role to play here. In the Italian community of Teramo in Abruzzo region, “for centuries women have done the so-called ‘virtues’ in May; they collect all the leftovers from the winter such as dried fruit or leftover pork. When spring arrives, all this food is put together and cooked with fresh vegetables in a dish called virtu teramane, which is a masterpiece of flavour and represents the fight against food wasting. The message is no food must go waste.”

Excerpt:

By Sabina Zaccaro
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 11 2010 (IPS)

“I think that Islam has been misinterpreted. No Islamic law says violate women’s rights and repress women,” says Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi. “Democracy, human rights and women leadership are absolutely not hostile to the Islamic doctrine.” And women in Iran are well aware of that, she says.

Shirin Ebadi Credit: Arash Ashourinia/IPS

Since the disputed Iranian presidential election last year, she has been forced to remain abroad. “But despite the use of force and violence to disperse crowds, and the awful images of abuses we have all seen in Tehran, women were present in high numbers on the streets, because they want their voices to be heard,” she says.

Q: Women’s rights activists have been working very hard in recent years to achieve equal status under Iranian law. Is the huge presence of women on the streets a part of this battle? A: Over 63 percent of the university students in Iran are female, and a huge number of the professors in universities in Iran are women. Numerous doctors, lawyers, CEOs, and engineers in Iran are women. Women have had the right to vote over 50 years ago, they have been members of parliament. However, notwithstanding the high level of the status of women in Iran, after the revolution very bad laws were passed, discriminatory laws were passed against women.

I will give a few examples of what happens. It happens that the life of a woman is worth one half of that of a man. This means that if a woman and a man get on the street and they’re injured for whatever reason, the damages paid to a woman are a half of that paid to a man. Testimony of two women in courts equals testimony of one man. A man can marry four wives and divorce four times on the basis of no excuse, but divorce can be very difficult for a woman.

These laws have generated dissatisfaction in women with the government, and that’s why whenever opportunity comes up they protest. And one of the opportunities that came out for the opposition of the people was the election result.

In the videos and the pictures of protests you see how many girls and women are on the streets, and as you know the video of Neda’s assassination (27-year-old Neda Agha-Soltan, who was shot down by a Basij sniper as she exited a car on her way to a protest) became a symbol of these movements. Neda means ‘voice’ in farsi, and this is like the voice of this movement coming out of the throat of this woman.

Q: Is it possible to reconcile the social and political advancement of women with the Islamic doctrine? A: Yes, (Muslim) women can be leaders, and this is not just my word, a number of high-level clergy in Iran have reiterated this, as for example the Ayatollah Sane. And let’s not forget the examples given by other Islamic countries, like Indonesia for example, where 25 years ago the president was a woman, Bangladesh, and Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan.

That’s not the situation in Iran, where according to the law the president and also the supreme leader has to be a man.

Q: Compared to its neighbouring countries, the feminist movement in Iran looks very vibrant. A: The feminist movement is stronger in Iran than in the neighbouring countries, and the reason for this is the historic social activity of women in Iran, and the work of civil society. The feminist movement is in the homes of all Iranians who believe in equality. The high number of women in universities shows that women are better educated than men; do you think that in this society women can accept the fact that their life is considered half of that of a man?

Q: Some women who have come here at the CSW in New York to testify violence and abuses in their countries, like the women from Burma, have put their lives in danger to come. You are basically doing the same thing, what is your strongest motivation? A: You have to pay a cost for everything, freedom and democracy have their own prices. If one only thinks of his own security or the security of his family, then we won’t have democratic societies.

Q: You have been tirelessly calling for international action to stop government crackdown on your country’s opposition, and even recently at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva. What expectation do you have? A: That human rights will not be overshadowed by the nuclear issue in Iran.

Excerpt:

By Sabina Zaccaro
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 8 2010 (IPS)

“Seven Burmese military soldiers attacked me and three of my friends,” said Chang Chang, from the northern Kachin State of Burma.

Rape survivors risk their lives by speaking out, says Lway Aye Nang, general secretary of the Women's League of Burma. Credit:

“Without warning, a major, captain and other Burmese military soldiers came into the karaoke shop where we were and forced us to leave with them. They took us to the military camp, 20 minutes travel from there,” she recalled. She said they could see their Burma Army military uniforms when they arrived at the shop.

“I could see some weapons on them too. They put all four of us into a room. Later, they separated us into different rooms and locked the doors. We begged them to let us stay together in one room. But they yelled at us and threatened us.”

In a firm voice, Chang Chang told a touched audience at the U.N. women’s conference last week how she was abused and threatened by the soldiers. “We were raped all night. It was very dark, so it was hard to know exactly how many soldiers raped us. I remembered seven of them… Seven raped me.”

“They threatened me and said that they would harm me, and harm my family, if I spoke out about what they did to me. I could only cry.”

After the Burmese BBC service broadcast a report that captains from Battalion 138 had raped four girls under 18, the Myanmar Women Affairs Federation came and took the girls from their homes. All of them were sentenced to one year’s imprisonment for violating prostitution laws. The soldiers went unpunished.

Thousands of women in Burma reportedly suffer daily at the hands of the ruling military junta. Rape, sexual violence, forced labour, torture, imprisonment and forced relocation are common ordeals that these brave women face.

Chang Chang is one of 12 courageous women from Burma who have come to the Mar. 1-12 Commission on the Status of Women to share their stories in front of a special International Tribunal on Crimes Against Women of Burma.

“This people’s tribunal will raise international visibility of the situation of women in Burma,” according to the Nobel Women’s Initiative and the Women’s League of Burma who have brought the 12 testimonies to New York. “It will also allow the world a glimpse of the strength of the women of Burma as builders of democracy. They are testifying in the hopes that their act will lead to real change.”

Rutha, 22, was five months pregnant when she was taken by the soldiers. The troops caught her and a group of other girls from Pyin Oo Lwin township. “When night fell, a soldier came to get me and took me to a room. I told him I was pregnant and begged him not to do any harm, but he did not listen,” she said.

“Even when I begged him, he forced me anyway and slapped my face,” Rutha said. “I was so scared and I screamed. Then he threatened me, ‘If you continue screaming I will punch your baby through your stomach.’ I shouted and he slapped my face.”

“He said if I shouted again they would stab me. So, I had no choice but to be quiet and let him rape me. I could only cry while he brutally raped me. I thought I could rest after the rape, but someone else came in as he left the room. I begged him not to harm me, but it was just in vain. He pulled me very hard onto the bed. One after another (they came), up to four.”

Once, Rutha saw a girl try to escape. The soldiers shot and killed her. “I saw it with my own eyes. Some people commit suicide because they are pregnant from being raped by the soldiers and they are shy and feel shameful even though it was not their fault,” she said.

Explaining why she decided to testify at the U.N., Rutha said, “I believe that sharing my story can help protect other girls and women from what I have suffered. I’m sure they also hope for a safer place for to stay, like I do.”

“Burma is so isolated and people are living in silence,” Lway Aye Nang, general secretary of the Women’s League of Burma, told TerraViva. “This kind of information does not really go out to the world,” Nang explained, “that’s why it is so important for the world to know about this and also… take action against Burma.”

Nang said these women are being sexually violated by their own government, their own regime, which is supposed to be helping them. “The only way to deal with this is to put the pressure on the regime and hold the government of Burma accountable for all these crimes,” she said.

Today, the women live in fear for their families who are back in Burma. “They live in a culture where women are silenced, and when a rape happens all the blame comes to the woman. And they definitely risk their lives by speaking out,” Nang stressed. But speaking up is the only way for them to escape the additional torture of silence.

*Names have been changed to protect the identity of witnesses.

Excerpt:

By Sabina Zaccaro
ROME, Mar 2 2010 (IPS)

Development does not protect women. The number of women physically and psychologically abused at home is at alarming levels across Europe.

Credit: Cartoon by Claudius

Across differences in the social and legal environment, women suffer verbal, emotional, physical, and sexual abuse, and then live with the consequences – chronic pain, sexually transmitted diseases, eating and sleeping disorders, alcohol abuse, job loss. The list is far longer.

Every minute on average in Britain the police receive a call from a member of the public requesting assistance with domestic abuse. Two women are murdered every week in England and Wales at the hands of their partners or ex-partners, according to data released by the Sussex police, and included in the latest report of Women against Violence in Europe (WAVE), a European network of women’s shelters.

“Political and public awareness of domestic violence, and the wider problem of violence against women, has improved, and there have been significant improvements in both statutory and voluntary sector services responses,” Nicola Harwin, chief executive of Women’s Aid Federation, the oldest national network of specialist domestic violence services in Britain tells IPS.

“However there is still much more to be done to provide effective protection and support for all victims of violence against women and their children.”

Women’s Aid supports the new government strategy to check violence against women and girls. The strategy includes measures to further protect victims, and tackle perpetrators. It brings also a new focus on prevention.

“We will be calling on all parties in the forthcoming general election to ensure that resources are identified to implement this strategy,” says Harwin.

Women’s Aid domestic and sexual violence services supported more than 108,690 women and 39,130 children last year, besides responding to more than 150,000 calls to the national domestic violence helpline.

In Italy, violence against women is rising. According to the latest report by the National Statistics Institute, ISTAT, 6.7 million women are estimated to have been victims of physical or sexual violence during their lifetime, out of a population of 60.3 million.

More than two million were stalked. The report says 690,000 women were victims of repeated violence by partners, often with their children as witnesses.

The Rome-based centre Differenza Donna (Different Woman) runs five shelters, one of them dedicated to migrant women. “We provide first assistance to women who risk their lives in unsafe homes, and then we help them gradually regain full self-respect before facing the world again,” says Dr. Emanuela Moroli, president of Differenza Donna.

Leaders of women’s organisations say more anti-violence centres have come up as a consequence of the Beijing platform of action. Born as private initiatives by doctors and rights activists, they turned into institutional entities to respond to the Beijing call.

Differenza Donna helps 1, 500 women yearly in Rome, 87-90 percent of them attacked by their partners. “In most cases they have been suffering physical and psychological abuses for years, under the threat ‘if you report, you’ll lose your children’.”

The women are often alone, says Moroli, with little help from their families of origin, who think marriage must be preserved under any circumstances. The centre has recently launched training programmes for police officials and health and care assistants for dealing with women victims.

In France, one woman is killed every three days in domestic violence, according to the interior ministry. A national police study in 2008 revealed that 156 women were murdered by their partner or ex-partner, while 27 men were killed in comparable circumstances. Nine children were murdered by their fathers. The deaths represent 16 percent of the national total of homicides.

Excerpt:

By Sabina Zaccaro
ROME, Dec 6 2009 (IPS)

Women are known to be innovators when it comes to responding to climate change. The question is how to ensure that the role of women and gender equality are reflected in climate change agreements.

Lorena Aguilar Revelo Credit: United Nations

To understand how far women are involved in decision making on climate change, TerraViva spoke with Lorena Aguilar Revelo, global senior gender advisor to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) which is a part of the Global Gender and Climate Alliance launched at the United Nations climate change conference in Bali in December 2007.

IPS: Women are said to be the major agents of change, but their role is still not recognised, according to the gender and climate alliance. LORENA AGUILAR REVELO: Women have been playing a major role in the management of natural resources for centuries, dealing with the agricultural sector. In countries of Africa, in Congo for example, they produce 73 percent of the food and in Africa as a whole 50 percent of the food that is being consumed on the continent.

Unfortunately, when you look at the other data you see that women only own one percent of the land worldwide; or when you look at the money from the new financing mechanism – or the previous financing mechanism – associated with climate change, you don’t find women as major beneficiaries.

IPS: Why is that so? LAR: The reason is that the whole climate change convention is gender blind. Of the three major conventions related to climate change – desertification, biodiversity and climate change – the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change is the only agreement with no mention of gender.

There are innumerable global mandates calling for integrating a gender perspective into environmental and poverty reduction efforts that also apply to climate change. Nevertheless, there is no gender plan of action and even no mention of gender or women’s issues.

And if you analyse all the numbers that have been developed by the least developed countries, only four of them mention gender issues – in a very simplistic way. Bangladesh is the only country that has made an effort to move along these lines.

IPS: What steps are being taken to include gender perspectives into the mitigation and adaptation efforts? LAR: Three years ago we established this alliance, and we are making sure in the new texts that any regime that comes after Copenhagen – and now probably Mexico – must have gender in it.

So far, the parties have submitted 39 references to gender and climate change, after a tremendous amount of advocacy work.

But we need to make sure that there are specific resources for women; whatever project is going to come out it must consider this, otherwise women are feeling the effects, they have a tremendous amount of knowledge on mitigation and adaptation but they are not part of anybody’s agenda.

IPS: Could you mention some examples? LAR: Right now we are discussing a new regime that is called REDD (reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation). At the national level, for those countries that have forests it is very important. So far the discussions over REDD again have been gender blind.

Women are using the forests in a different way than men. In some countries, India for example, the role of women in protecting the forests to avoid deforestation has been major; and the same is true for Brazil or Guatemala.

When it comes to forests and mitigation – one of the major areas being discussed – it is fundamental that in those countries that have forests, where women are users of the forests, they are involved in defining how the forests are going to be used, but also in receiving the benefits that will derive from the REDD regime.

IPS: How can the participation of women in decision-making on climate change be increased? LAR: It is fundamental that in the discussion on REDD, women are invited as stakeholders, that they’re trained to understand what REDD is about, because no one understands that very well.

When it comes to adaptation it’s the same thing. We are talking about reducing the impact of disasters for example; it means making sure that women are fully participating in disaster risk reduction processes.

IPS: Do you expect that delegates to Copenhagen will give due attention to your concerns? LAR: We have been updating and training COP delegates for two years now. Delegates from various countries have been extremely open to including the topic of gender, like those from EU, Liberia, Ghana, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and the U.S. In the high-level declaration that will probably come out of Copenhagen, we know there is going to be one mention of gender. If we get that at the end of Copenhagen it is a massive win.

(*This story appears in the IPS TerraViva online daily published for the CoP 15 at Copenhagen.)

Excerpt:

By Sabina Zaccaro
ROME, Nov 16 2009 (IPS)

World farmers are not part of the official delegations at the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) food summit on food security that opened here Monday. But they came anyhow to express their views, since, they say, it is their communities that are most impacted by the food crisis.

Hortense Kinkodila of La Via Campesina in Congo Brazaville. Credit: Sabina Zaccaro/IPS

Small farmers and other small food producers number more than 1.5 billion in the world, the civil society forum estimates. “They produce more than 75 percent of the world’s food needs through peasant agriculture and small scale livestock production, and with artisanal fishing,” organisers say.

According to the FAO, the number of hungry people rose this year to 1.02 billion people, as a result of the global economic crisis, high food and fuel prices, drought and conflict.

“The amount of hungry people announced by the FAO includes, for the vast majority, those who produce food,” Antonio Onorati, of the International Civil Society Planning Committee (IPC), told IPS. “And this represents the most incredible aspect of hunger.”

Indigenous knowledge and practices have the potential to improve local and global food security, farmers’ organisations say, but they still struggle to be recognised.

Key issues on the table of farmers’ and peasants’ organisations these days basically concern who decided food and agricultural policies; where these decisions were taken; who controls food producing resources; how food is produced; and how to help people who do not have direct access to food, namely the urban poor.

Outcomes of their work will be presented at the FAO summit Wednesday.

Farmers’ issues are not so distant from those the FAO and participant governments will be discussing. What is different is their perspective. “Those whom the World Trade Organisation (WTO), The World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) consider as victims are in fact the real protagonists, they are able to produce enough food for themselves, if they are allowed to,” Onorati said.

Among the causes of food insecurity for indigenous communities, farmers point to the loss of land, territories and resources, and the non-recognition and violation of their indigenous rights.

According to Renée Vellvé of the global Ngo GRAIN, access and right to land should be given priority. “The land-grabbing trend that is going on right now is where countries that have money, but depend on the outside for the food – like Saudi Arabia, Korea and others – are going to Africa and Asia to get farmlands to produce their own food outside,” she told IPS.

“Investment companies are trying to do the same just to make money, so you see governments and industries coming in and throwing farmers off their lands, especially where they don’t have secure titles; this affects women first, especially in Africa.”

Nettie Weibe of La Via Campesina agrees that returning lands to the small- scale farmers is critical. “It is so obvious – but it has been forgotten – that food production is absolutely necessary to food security, and that it is farmers who produce food and put it into the market,” she told IPS.

“But we are now so increasingly distant from our food, particularly in developed countries, that the farmer part of it has been forgotten, and in fact it has been erased by a corporate, industrial production.”

According to Weibe, local agriculture and local markets can even cool the planet. “Real genuine agrarian reform, which has been put on hold for decades, would do far more for the climate that any deal that could result from the upcoming negotiations in Copenhagen,” she said.

Vellvé said farmers’ organisations no longer believe in codes of conduct, guidelines and principles that are being discussed at the FAO. “The problem is how far they will push that, and how the governments feel about it.”

So beyond economic resources, what small producers ask for is a change in the decision process that has an impact on their lives. “This can only happen if the local community have a role in the decision process, and if they get access and control over the local productive resources,” Onorati said.

FAO’s director Jacques Diouf – who embarked on a 24 hour hunger strike over the weekend in solidarity with the world’s hungry – asked rich countries to increase the amount they give each year in agricultural aid from 7.9 billion dollars to 44 billion.

But the draft declaration that will most probably be adopted includes only a commitment to “substantially increase the share of official development assistance (ODA) devoted to agriculture and food security based on country- led requests.”

“If healthy countries do not increase investment in agriculture as requested by the FAO, this initiative will lack the concrete tools to effectively fight hunger,” Sergio Marelli, president of the civil society advisory group to the summit, told IPS.

“We know that in the last phases of negotiations, even the reference to 2025 as the deadline for the eradication of hunger has disappeared from the final declaration,” he said.

Excerpt:

By Sabina Zaccaro
ROME, Sep 21 2009 (IPS)

“They beat us. They beat everyone, men and women. They usually beat us in the same room where we were kept. But they took some people out of the room. Not me, but they took other women out of the room.”

Drawing by a 19-year-old Nigerian migrant: his crowded rubber boat was ignored by passing ships, before a lengthy argument between Italy and Malta over who should take them in. Credit: HRW

The report, “Pushed Back, Pushed Around: Italy’s Forced Return of Boat Migrants and Asylum Seekers, Libya’s Mistreatment of Migrants and Asylum Seekers,” released by HRW Monday, tells a harrowing tale about the treatment of migrants in Libya through the testimony of those who have managed to reach Italy and Malta.

The report also criticises Italy’s practice of intercepting boats full of migrants on the high seas and sending them back to Libya without the required screening.

According to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, the number of irregular boat migrants arriving in Italy from North Africa rose from 19,900 in 2007 to 36,000 in 2008, an 89.4 percentage increase. Italy also received 31,164 new asylum applications in 2008, an increase of 122 percent from the 14,053 asylum applicants in 2007.

A cooperation agreement reached between Italy and Libya in May instituted a practice of towing boats intercepted in international waters back to Libya without determining whether some of those aboard might be refugees, sick or injured, pregnant women, unaccompanied children, or victims of trafficking or other forms of violence against women, HRW charges.

On the surface, the policy has been successful. In the first week after the interdiction programme began, about 500 people in boats were summarily returned to Libya, according to HRW.

This triggered a remarkable reduction in the number of boats attempting the journey across the Mediterranean. In the following eight weeks, only 400 people were interdicted and returned; irregular migration by boat to Sicily and Sardinia fell by 55 percent in the first six months of 2009 compared to the same period the previous year.

But HRW says Italy is acting in violation of the country’s legal obligation not to commit refoulement – the forcible return of people to places where their lives or freedom would be threatened or where they would face a risk of torture.

“Italy is sending people back to abuse,” Bill Frelick, HRW refugee policy director and author of the report told IPS. “All migrants we interviewed, who had been detained in Libya, told us about brutal treatment and overcrowded and unsanitary conditions.”

Many of those interviewed by HRW said women are regularly taken away from the detainees’ group and sexually assaulted.

Madihah*, a 24-year-old Eritrean woman who was held in the Libyan migrant detention centres of Al Fellah and Misrata said, “All of the women had problems from the police. The police came at night and chose ladies to violate.”

HRW urges the government of Italy to immediately stop interdicting and summarily returning boat migrants to Libya. It should also stop cooperating with the Libyan authorities on the interdiction of migrants trying to leave Libya.

The Italian Interior Ministry did not have immediate comment responding to the Human Rights Watch report, although Frelick told IPS that a meeting with government officials is scheduled for Sep 22.

The report also urges the European Union – currently negotiating the Libya-EU Framework Agreement – to ensure that Libya ends the arbitrary detention of migrants and “that conditions of detention conform to international minimum standards.”

The respect of the rights of asylum seekers and migrants should be a condition for any cooperation on migration-control schemes, the report says, “in order to protect detained migrants from physical abuse, including sexual and gender-based violence, and hold police and other officials accountable for any abuses.”

* Names in the report were changed to protect identities.

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By Sabina Zaccaro
ROME, Sep 11 2009 (IPS)

An alarming rise has been recorded in the number of Nigerian girls trafficked to Italy.

Last year 1,782 young girls from Nigeria arrived in Lampedusa, compared to 166 in 2007, human rights organisations say. Lampedusa, an Italian island 205 km from the Italian coast, located between Tunisia and Sicily, is used as a holding centre for migrants, particularly from Africa.

Human trafficking has become the third biggest source of income for criminal organisations globally, following drug and arms, according to a report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) published earlier this year. Close to 80 percent of people trafficked, mostly women, are sexually exploited, the report says.

Women's representatives from 25 countries have asked the G8 countries to lead global, concrete action against such gender-based violence. The G8 is a group of developed countries that include the U.S., Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia.

"The Italian presidency of the Group of Eight (G8) gives us a unique opportunity to put the global issue of violence against women on the leaders agenda," equal opportunities minister Maria Rosa Carfagna told a conference of women's groups in Rome Sep. 9-10. "We are not here to grieve over women's condition, but rather to show the world our determination to change."

The meeting raised several issues such as rape, domestic violence, female genital mutilation, access to education, and violence against young girls. A joint statement resulting from the conference will be submitted to the G8 foreign affairs ministers meeting at the U.N. General Assembly later this month.

While the U.N. report says most victims of traffickers are women and girls, they are also the majority among perpetrators in 30 percent of the countries that provided evidence on the gender of traffickers. Many former victims, pushed by psychological or financial reasons, become traffickers.

"These women, who we call maman, force us on the streets for days without pause, also when we have our period, also when we are pregnant…and a few days after childbirth we are pushed on the street again, or the maman would steal babies from us," Isoke Aikpitanyi told IPS.

Aikpitanyi, 30, left Nigeria in 2000 on promise of a job in London, but was 'sold' to a criminal group, sent to Italy and forced into prostitution. "Here I found true hell," she said, "a world of daily violence perpetrated by men, and by other women, and also by our own families who pretend they're not aware, and take their part of money."

Aikpitanyi says she raised 40,000 dollars through her work for the people who arranged her trip to Europe. Criminal organisations lend women money to pay for the trip, and the women are meant to pay that back through their work. Invariably, they are forced into prostitution to pay the debt. "Today, girls are asked for 80,000 dollars," Aikpitanyi says. "In many cases, it takes years (to pay back).

"Girls who are forced into prostitution say that for each woman victim of human trafficking, an Italian woman is safe from rape," she said, because they are often approached by violent men who are potential rapists.

A girl who shared a room with Aikpitanyi was killed after reporting violence to the police. In 2003, when Aikpitanyi found the courage to escape her jailers and inform the police, she was assaulted and reduced to coma.

It was a long time before she could find protection from a women's organisation and then build her own organisation, Girls from Benin City, named after a city in southern Nigeria. The group now helps many Nigerian victims or former victims of trafficking.

"The government of Nigeria is doing a lot to stop human trafficking," Barry Bibata, minister for women's promotion and child protection told IPS. "In 2003 we enacted a law providing for a very severe sentence for anybody caught trafficking in persons, and we set up an agency for the prohibition of human trafficking (Naptip) that secures shelters and protections to victims.

"These girls are often very young, they are not mature enough to decide about their future," Bibata said. The Nigerian government is cooperating with Italy to identify victims, she said, assist them when they come back, and integrate them back within their family in their country of origin.

Italy offers protection to victims of trafficking under a law that provides residence permits to women who escape traffickers; 673 women received permits between 2000 and 2006. Victims can also call a free number (800 290 290).

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By Sabina Zaccaro
ROME, Jul 28 2009 (IPS)

Agriculture is vital to the economies of West and Central African countries, but poverty remains a reality in the region's rural areas.

Mohamed Béavogui: 'IFAD is helping farmers organise and increase their bargaining capacity... that's where access to market starts.' Credit: Sabina Zaccaro/IPS

According to the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) small farmers have little say in the major decisions affecting their lives, and they are rarely consulted on key policy orientations or investments.

Mohamed Béavogui, Director Western and Central Africa division at IFAD spoke to IPS about the uneven economic growth in the region and how to address the problem of agricultural production.

IPS: What are IFAD's priorities in West and Central Africa? Mohamed Béavogui: Much of the population in Western and Central Africa – about 60 to 70 percent of the population – lives in the rural areas. Agriculture is the main activity and income source for them.

The role of IFAD in this region is extremely important in terms of supporting the areas that can have real impact on poverty reduction. It has long been demonstrated that agriculture can contribute three to four times more to poverty reduction than any other sector.

For us, supporting agriculture means allowing these people to produce more, and producing more means having better lands to produce, controlling water, having good access to technology which is seeds, inputs, fertilisers.

But in order to do this you need financial resources and you need to be organised very well. Supporting them in having their own institutions to get together, being stronger in the market and asking government for better policies is our aim.

IPS: West Africa has a stronger market culture – specifically around agricultural production – than does the rest of the continent. What's IFAD's assessment of this market system? How do you interact with farmer networks? MB: There has been a long debate over the possibility to concentrate on large farms because of their better access to market. Our response is that the majority of farmers are small holder farmers, we cannot ignore them. And now there is evidence coming out that at farm gate (the net value of the product when it leaves the farm) these farmers are very competitive.

In fact they are competing without policy support and with many barriers. Any small farmer in any of the West African countries – when he gets out of his farm to go to the town has so many road blocks to overcome, and this contributes to the cost of his product before he even gets to the market.

But despite the apparent success, there are lots of problems – packaging is a problem because it is not easy to find materials. Transportation is also very big problem, the quality of the roads is very bad. Very often the lorry that comes to the village to collect your product is so old that it then breaks down along the road and you lose your whole consignment. This is something that happens everyday.

The other challenge is farmers' ability to organise themselves in order to be able not only to sell and to transport but also to have negotiation capacities with the buyers out there in town. What IFAD is doing is helping farmers to be organised and increase their bargaining capacity… that's where access to market starts.

IPS: What is the role of information in this process? MB: One of the key elements for negotiation is to understand the prices. The system of information on prices is something we are focusing on, trying to set up systems that allow a farmer in Cotonou to just take his phone and be informed about the prices in North Nigeria.

We do that in Ghana, and in Benin where (radio is also a key support). We finance rural radio stations which are a major source of information for farmers who can be updated on the current market price of oil and rice, for example. What happens very often is that they are asked to plant a product, they receive some money in advance for it, and at the end of the season the buyer comes back and fixes a very low price leaving no possibility for the farmer to negotiate (a fair price), due to lack of information.

At policy level we do our best to facilitate the dialogue between government and farmers, to make the government understand that their policies can influence agricultural production.

IPS: What is your relationship to the very active non-governmental organisations that are pushing schemes on agriculture at the moment? MB: We invest a lot in farmers' organisations. In West Africa, they are vibrant and very active. Today they influence the policy at national level. It is the best way really to make sure that policies that are devised take care of all the aspects, particularly the interests of the farmers themselves.

IPS: Land tenure is considered a key factor for credit, security of investment, control of labour, gender inequality. How is IFAD addressing that? MB: We have a lot of programmes on land tenure and its connections – gender, deforestation, irrigation, policies, traditions. We are conscious that unless the land tenure problem is at least controlled you cannot improve agricultural production. Nobody will come and plant a tree in a land if it’s not sure that the land is for him and he can use it.

Almost all IFAD's projects include land issues. In Burkina Faso, for example, we are helping the government on land tenure policies at country level and we are also helping African Union to support the thinking about land tenure.

IPS: What has been the concrete result of these activities? MB: In many countries until few years ago, all land belonged to the government, without questioning. These things are changing.

In Mauritania, in the Maghama area, 100,000 hectares of land – part of the land is not usable because there is no water: here we help the community to develop irrigation.

And part of IFAD's negotiation is to give every farmer who works on that land a portion of it. This is negotiated in advance through an agreement signed by the owners and the governments. Based on that, the owner of the land keeps the bigger part and the remaining portion is distributed among farmers, even those who did not have even land before.

It is happening, and we make sure that also women get their own share of land, particularly in the areas where food production is completely dominated by them.

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By Sabina Zaccaro
ROME, Jul 16 2009 (IPS)

The financial crisis could actually boost agriculture in Latin America, Josefina Stubbs, director of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) division for Latin America and the Caribbean tells IPS in an interview.

Josefina Stubbs Credit:

IPS: What are the effects of the economic crisis on agriculture in Latin America? Is there a risk it could increase rural poverty? Josefina Stubbs: I think the current financial crisis is an opportunity for the rural sector, even if this sounds a little bit strange. It does present an opportunity because the countries, the governments, the populations, the producers are realising more and more that in Latin America about 60 percent of the food that is consumed is by small producers.

In a country like Brazil, with a population of 189 million, family agriculture – which is the small-scale sort of plot, managed normally by very poor people – produces 70 percent of the food. We are talking about a huge force; the potential of this people is just extraordinary.

The case of Brazil is really interesting. The ministry of agrarian development developed a system for supporting small producers, creating new access to finance, but at the same time guaranteeing a market for them. But even more, they buy the food from some of these producers to be distributed in schools and hospitals. That’s what Brazil demonstrates, that they can have some market in the country that can get and acquire the products of small producers to feed the rest of the country, and generate incomes for the rural sectors.

IPS: Is Brazil an exception? JS: We are seeing another example in Guatemala. Here international trade agreements and international trade opportunities are also offering new opportunities for the producers to put their products in the market. In the last 10-15 years, based on very small producers, Guatemala has become the largest exporter of vegetables to the U.S. market.

IPS: What is the relation between this and the financial crisis? JS: It was explained to me in very simple mathematics in Haiti, in Guatemala and in other countries. They say ‘we have been importing an important amount of food to feed our people’. Buying the food in the international markets means we have to dispense our currency, which in Latin America means U.S. dollars. And they say every dollar they use to buy food outside of the country cannot be used for all the services in the country.

What I hope is that the discussions about the crisis include the issue of rural development, and the issue of investing in small-scale agriculture as a way of capitalising the country in terms of foreign currency but also in terms of generating employment and food security.

Now the challenge for us is how to stimulate agriculture as away of boosting the economy of the countries, generating employment, but also as a way of closing the gap. The progress I mentioned before have to be combined with production; that’s the great challenge we have in front of us in the region.

IPS: Is there any concern about food insecurity in Latin America? In what countries or areas? JS: So far as you become dependent on others to feed your people, that’s what insecurity is. I think the region is recognising that food security is important and that we cannot be completely and fully dependent on import of food because of the fluctuation of the international market.

Central America and the Caribbean are the regions that have suffered most in this crisis. When you have shortage of maize, in the case of Mexico that means the diet is not there, but also you cannot feed the chickens, and you have to import a lot of wheat in order to do bread.

What is really amazing for me is how small farmers all across Latin America just need the basics. People are not sitting and waiting for the governments to give to them, they just need the basic inputs in order for them to produce, be organised and access the market. People are not necessarily dependent.

IPS: Are opportunities equally distributed among male and female rural populations? Do women farmers have equal access to land, credit, salaries and incomes? JS: In the case of Latin America almost all countries have changed the laws for women to have equal access to land. In Guatemala, in Honduras, in Colombia and many other countries those laws have already put in place. Also thanks to the pressure of the social movements, and women’s movements, Latin America has been revisiting the land property regime in terms of giving equal access to men and women.

It is clear that the problem is not only about having access to land. The issue is women do have more problems in getting a loan from the banks. They do not have equal access to credit and to agricultural inputs – seeds, fertilisers – this is where the problem lies at the moment.

We’re making sure that the community organisations that we work with include women, and we work directly with women’s organisations to monitor if our project is really helping women’s access to inputs.

IPS: Where is monitoring needed particularly? JS: One area where I feel we are still really behind is women’s access to market. Once they go to producers organisations, once they want to link the products with the companies that buy the products, then there is a gap. Because they do not have the information, the technology, the contacts, they normally don’t go to the meetings with foreign buyers.

Whenever you see a tour to present a product you see mostly men. That is partially because the domestic burden hasn’t been redistributed, so when there’s a trip to Italy to present the chocolate that this association is producing it is normally the men who come. And that goes against the women in the sense that they do not have the exposure opportunity that men are having.

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By Sabina Zaccaro
ROME, Jul 8 2009 (IPS)

Investment in the health and the rights of girls and women can help economic recovery, civil society groups are telling G8 leaders.

Woman farmer in Ecuador. Credit: Sabina Zaccaro/IPS

“If we invest in women, many problems will be solved,” Sylvia Borren, co- chair of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) told IPS.

Women have told their stories at hearings held by the gender task force at GCAP. “With the food prices doubling they had to choose which child to feed,” Borren said. “The stories we’ve heard tell us that if you invest in women, economy can stand from the ground.

“We know that from microfinance and from many other examples; letting women suffer from the food crisis and the lack of health means not to build the fundamentals of sustainable economy.”

The problem is funding. According to the World Bank, the economic crisis and the new rise in food prices could lead to 2.8 million more children dying by 2015 if no concrete action is taken. Sixty billion dollars are needed over the next five years to fight infectious diseases and strengthen health systems in the developing world, the World Bank estimates.

Last year’s G8 summit agreed comprehensive recommendations to strengthen health systems particularly, but without allocating funds to that end. “When G8 leaders meet in Italy they should agree to fill this financing gap,” 56 women parliamentarians from Asia, Africa, Europe and G8 countries have said in a letter addressed to the G8.

“Investing in women’s health as part of aid policies has to be considered a priority, as it will give to the poorer countries a better chance to solve the crisis in a prospect of development,” they wrote.

Sexual and reproductive diseases clearly represent a huge economic loss to developing economies. They reduce female productivity by 20 percent, the parliamentarians said.

“In some cases the incidence in Africa is even more,” Cristiana Scoppa of the Italian Association for Women in Development told IPS. “The high turnover due to HIV/AIDS hitting or killing employees is a growing problem for many African businesses; and we don’t even know exactly how many women are among those workers.

“Productivity of these companies has been reduced by 25 percent, while health assistance expenses for their workers grow. Now they are turning to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and to trade unions to find solutions,” she said.

Dedicated funding and policies to protect young girls and their rights could also help women who are looking for ways to deal with difficult working conditions.

“We have spoken to a group of women living in the Ganga basin, Bangladesh, an area severely hit by natural disasters,” Beatrice Costa, women’s policy officer for the anti-poverty organisaton ActionAid International told IPS. “We asked them how they are adapting their work to the changing climate.

“In the areas where adaptation to climate change is already a reality, women are not acting as passive victims,” Costa said. “Like the women farmers who are now starting to replace rice with bananas, because these are more resistant to floods or drought.”

According to a report by ActionAid published earlier this year, women in Southern Asia are perfectly aware of the neede to “diversify and adapt their cultivation methods, but they also know they lack the capacity to do that.” To improve their management and adaptation strategies they need specific programmes and dedicated funds, Costa said.

In order to be politically and financially effective, the G8 should at least produce the 60 billion dollars required, and come up with a comprehensive work plan with clear objectives, timelines and resources, she said.

“Of course it’s about money, and the money is there,” said Sylvia Borren. “Not even a third of the 30 billion dollars requested at the UN high level meeting on the food crisis one year ago has been forthcoming, when 20,000 billion dollars have gone to the corporate bailout and the banks…the amount of difference is too big.”

According to Borren, the leaders have made the wrong choices. “They have chosen to desperately bail out an economic system that we all agree is broken, they are not listening to the Stiglitz commission (of experts of the UN General Assembly on reform of the international monetary and financial system), which has provided us with 400 pages of good solutions…they are not listening to the trade unions, the ILO, the civil society.”

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By Sabina Zaccaro
ROME, Jul 6 2009 (IPS)

Many civil society organisations are staying on in Sardinia island in support of a region severely affected by the economic crisis, after the G8 leaders summit was moved from there to the city of L'Aquila.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi decided to move the G8 meeting to L'Aquila, north-east of Rome, after a major earthquake almost destroyed the city and surroundings in April, killing 300 people. The government explained the decision as "an act of solidarity, and attention to the region's population."

But 17 national, international and regional NGOs that had begun work with the people of Sardinia decided they would not walk out on the region. "We had started to work with the local communities on our joint proposals to the G8 when the decision was taken," says Raffaella Bolini of the human rights organisation Arci. "And we decided to maintain our activities there, particularly in the mining areas of Sulcis Iglesiente and Maedio Campidano."

According to organisers of an alternative GSott8 (G Underground) summit, Sardinia and areas around are a metaphor for challenges arising from climate change and the financial crisis.

Sulcis region in southern Sardinia has gone through years of over- exploitation of its mineral and natural resources, that have now run dry.

Sardinia was long the most important mining region of Italy for lead, zinc, copper and other metals. The decline of their economic value, which experts see as a consequence of changes in mining activities in less developed countries, led to an abandonment of workers in many areas of the island.

"The last mine of the Sulcis region was closed in 1994," trade unionist Luigi Camposano told IPS. "Workers who have been risking their lives in such hard and insane places lying down every day in 80cm high corridors, have suffered. Because with the work, they have lost their dignity.

"Sardinia is isolated, there are few productive factories, poverty is growing, the future of its inhabitants is not sustainable," Campisano said. "Its situation is very similar to that of developing countries that are struggling to build their future."

Economic difficulties faced by the companies that owned the mines, and a lack of effective environmental policy hampered restoration of the mine areas.

The unemployment rate is very high in the region. According to trade unions, 35,000 former workers are unemployed on an island with a population of 135,000, and 6,000 are on short contracts. Another 15,000 are expected to lose their jobs in the near future. Only 2,500 have been given unemployment benefits.

According to GSott8 organisers, almost every family in Sardinia is affected by the crisis. The island is suffering like much of the world. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has estimated that about 200 million jobs have been lost worldwide due to the economic crisis, putting millions of people into extreme poverty.

"Neither G8 nor G20 can provide an effective response to this global crisis," Bolini told IPS. "They do not represent world power, but only great economies in crisis. The G192 and every local community must be included in the decision-making process, and they can offer concrete contributions from below to deal with the emergency."

The environment is another victim of the crisis in Sardinia. Contamination from abandoned mines has been worsened by semi-arid conditions with long periods of drought and heat, and a scarcity of shallow groundwater and vegetable cover.

Sardinia is in some respects not very different from Nigeria, says Nnimmo Bassey, director of Environmental Rights Action (ERA), a Nigerian organisation working to limit the environmental impact of oil extraction in the Niger Delta.

"The major challenge for the Nigerian state today is related to the collapse of crude oil revenue from an unprecedented 150 dollars a barrel to below 40 dollars," he said. "Nigeria produces two million barrels a day, but crude oil, and the related problems of degradation and workers' rights abuses, has already caused Nigeria enough problems."

According to Bassey, Nigeria should begin to look at alternative sources of revenue generation. "What ERA proposes is to keep the oil under the ground; the world will move to alternative energy sources in the next few years, so there is no future in crude oil as the major revenue earner. We ask Nigeria to not make any new oil block concessions."

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