advancing foei’s food sovereignty agenda
The Nyeleni Forum, was crucial in helping FoEI to frame its Food Sovereignty Program, continue to build strategic alliances with La Via Campesina, increase the visibility of the food sovereignty movement, and act more effectively at both the grassroots and international levels.
FoEI was the only environmental organization involved in convening the Nyeleni Forum in 2007, together with La Via Campesina, the Network of Farmers’ and Agricultural Producers’ Organizations of West Africa, the World March of Women, the World Forum of Fish Harvesters and Fish Workers, the World Forum of Fisher Peoples, the International Planning Committee on Food Sovereignty, and the Food Sovereignty Network. The forum gathered more than 500 representatives from over 80 countries, from organizations of peasants and family farmers, artisanal fisher folk, Indigenous Peoples, rural workers, migrants, pastoralists, forest communities, women, youth, and consumer, environmental and urban movements. Participants collectively debated and designed dynamic strategies to implement global and local food systems that support small producers and consumers rather than transnational companies.
FoEI also participated at the Mali Forum follow-up meeting in August 2008, and in La Via Campesina’s Fifth International Conference and Third International Assembly of Women in Mozambique, September 2008. In addition, groups in Latin America actively participated in La Via Campesina’s School of Women and its regional meeting in Rosario, Argentina, in September 2008. The outputs from these meetings have fed into the development of FoEI’s Food Sovereignty Program’s political framework and its strategy. Further collaboration with La Via Campesina in Europe and Latin America is being developed across a range of different working areas.
In June 2008, just before FAO’s High Level Conference on World Food Security, organizations in the Nyeleni Forum launched the statement No More “Failures-as-usual”. In two weeks over 600 organizations and movements had signed the statement. This is a clear indication of the importance of the food sovereignty agenda and the need to promote concrete actions and policies to ensure its implementation.
To date, Nyeleni has inspired many crucial events on food sovereignty all over the world. Many local and regional governments are collaborating to apply its principles. Significant initiatives from national governments include those of ALBA and the Petro-Caribe Conference in Latin America; processes to include food sovereignty in the constitutions of Nepal, Bolivia and Ecuador; and the increased priority being given to peasant-based production by the government of Mali.
pdf: Nyéléni 2007 - Forum for Food Sovereignty.
