introduction: how people can prevail in
poverty eradication
Institutional solutions to poverty and
hunger, inspired by the neoliberal economic
model, are doomed to fail. Friends of the
Earth International believes that
communities and local people can to a large
extent determine their own sustainable and
equitable futures when they are given
access to and control over their natural
resources and appropriate technology.
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The groups we work with around the world
are living proof that alternatives to
business-as-usual in the area of poverty
eradication can succeed. Together with
them, we campaign for the recognition of
environmental rights, including collective
rights to natural resources. We are also
pushing for the inclusion of women in all
aspects of poverty eradication, from
defining the problem to implementing the
solutions. Our answers include the
promotion of sustainable energy, which is
essential in addressing the dangers posed
to people everywhere by climate change. We
also believe in the power of sustainable
agricultural practices to feed the world
and to preserve ecosystems.
We are campaigning against regional and
global trade agreements, and in particular
for the removal of food and agriculture
issues from the World Trade Organization's
mandate, so that small, local and diverse
rural economies can be created. Finally, we
are pushing for the immediate and
unconditional cancellation of the external
debt owed by poor countries to
international financial institutions and
northern private banks, and the repayment
of the ecological debt owed by
industrialized countries to southern people
for decades of resource exploitation.
