WUNRN
Civil Society - Women
South Asia Focus - Global Theme
Dhaka
Declaration on Food Sovereignty
We, the members of social movements, peasant organizations, labour unions, fishers folks organizations, women's groups and civil society organizations and human rights organisations from different SAARC countries (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan & Sri Lanka) have gathered here in Dhaka from 23-25 September, 2008 to share experiences and develop collective strategies to face and challenge the ongoing food crisis and imminent threats of global warming.
We have observed with great concern that the poverty is intensifying in
South Asia and small and marginal peasants, sharecroppers, agricultural
labourers, poor workers in the informal sectors, women in particular
are becoming the worst victims of hunger and malnutrition. We have further
found that poor peasants have little access to productive and natural resources
like land, water, forests, seeds and other means of production to practice
agriculture in a sustainable way in order to ensure their livelihoods.
The food and agricultural policies, as adopted by the nation states in this
region, are based on neo-liberal principles and are promoted by IFIs (WB, IMF,
ADB etc) and MNCs, which have intensified food crisis and have increased
environmental catastrophes. The nation-states have failed to mainstream the
principles of food sovereignty in policies and programmes to ensure right to
food and livelihoods of people. Particularly non implementation of genuine
agrarian reform and reforms in other sectors have affected the vulnerable
groups like, poor peasants, peasant-women, fisher folk, Dalits and Tribal
communities most. This discrimination is rooted in structural inequity existing
in our society for generations and is further intensified in the era of
neo-liberalization.
We have further observed with great concern that agro-fuel has been promoted
through government policies, supported by WB & IMF, ostensibly to overcome
fuel crisis and to address climate change threats. However, in reality
agro-fuel expansion is only increasing the profits of the multinationals at the
cost of food security of millions of poor in our countries.
Sustainable agriculture practices have been systematically discouraged and traditional
knowledge and practices have been dismantled in the name of modernization of
agriculture and increase in food production. Land alienation of poor,
displacements and loss of livelihood has emerged as big issues of concerns in
the region. In this context we have also noted the decision of the SAARC states
to create the 'food bank' in the region to address the food crisis. We strongly
feel that creating the 'food bank' alone will not resolve the present food
crisis. In order to address the food crisis adequately, fundamental structural
and political changes are needed at national/regional levels.
With this collective understanding we urge our governments to take
the following measures:
1. The nation states in South Asia should implement genuine agrarian reform
immediately to enable the poor peasants to have effective access and control
over land, water and other productive and natural resources.
2. The state policies should ensure that poor peasants do not become victims of
land alienations and displacements due to unproductive usages of land,
privatization and commercialization process in agriculture.
3. Adequate and effective policies should be adopted to protect and preserve
biodiversity of the region and to promote traditional knowledge and practices
in agriculture. The nation states have the obligation to ensure peasants access
to traditional seeds. Sustainable agriculture practices should be encouraged
through researches, documentations and financial support from the state.
4. The state policies should support small and marginal peasants from unfair
open market competitions by providing support and subsidies in agriculture
inputs, especially by creating public institutions and by ensuring appropriate
price of the agriculture products.
5. The state should prioritize right to food obligations over corporate profit
interests and should immediately ban conversion of agricultural lands for non
agricultural purposes like Special Economic Zones, Export Processing Zones,
unplanned expansion of urbanization, production of agro-fuel etc.
6. As WTO negotiations have undermined food sovereignty of the people in our
region, we strongly urge our governments to support the civil society position
"WTO out of Agriculture"
7. While we appreciate the steps taken by most of our governments to
introduce/reinforce public distribution system and employment guarantee schemes
to meet with the present food crisis challenge, but we strongly feel that these
efforts have to be inclusive with a focus on most vulnerable communities and
should be implemented in a transparent and accountable manner at grassroots.
8. We urge the governments to take side with the agreement under Kyoto/UNFCCC
frameworks which has underlined policies for compensation from Annex 1 /
developed countries and also the deep cut in emission by developed countries
which is 20%-40% by 2020 from the level of 1990.
9. We also urge the governments in our countries to oppose the conspiracies of
G 8 countries and IFIs which undermining the UNFCCC framework and funding
through GEF for climate justice. We further urge the government of Bangladesh
in particular and all other governments of this region to oppose UK intention
to invite World Bank to manage multi donor trust fund for Bangladesh.
10. Finally we congratulate the people and the government of Nepal for making
food sovereignty a fundamental right in their new interim Constitution. At the
same time we urge all other governments in our region to acknowledge 'Food
sovereignty' as a fundamental right of people to be enshrined in the
constitutions of the respective countries.
Above all we believe that a democratic governance system is imperative to
provide space to all actors in the society, especially poor actors like
peasants, women, labourers, fisher folk in the informal sectors, Dalits, tribal
communities in raising their voices and in asserting their legitimate rights.
We feel that genuine political will is a precondition to create the above
conducive environment so the peasants' rights have been fully realized.
We the participants of this workshop reaffirm our position against neo-liberal
policies and commit ourselves to create social movements for promotion of food
sovereignty and for ensuring sustainable agriculture in the region.
Dhaka, 25th September 2008 A total 45 organizations from different
countries from South Asia adopted the declaration and decided to send
the declaration to food ministry of respective countries on the eve of World
Food Day on 16 October 2008. The participants also agreed to formulate country
position paper in each country on food crisis with recommendations to forward
to the Meeting of FAO to be held on Kathmandu, Nepal in October 2008. The
participating organizations also called to take joint actions and mobilization
on the World Food Day (16 October 2008) as Food Action Day in all South Asian
countries. The Food Action Day will be observed by giving emphasis on
mobilization activities like demonstration, rally, discussion, cultural events
and giving memorandum to policy leaders in all SA countries.
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