Country: Belgium

Transforming food systems from the bottom-up: local food policies and public participation in Europe

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The CRESS project is a collective effort by FIAN International, FIAN Austria, FIAN Belgium, FIAN Portugal, Observatori DESCA (Spain), and (the former) FIAN Sweden, funded by the EU. 

In recent years there has been an increase across Europe in local government policies and initiatives around food (systems) and nutrition. This has been accompanied and driven by the emergence of participatory spaces, including food policy councils, that engage communities in food policy making at the local level.

The project examines concrete policies and initiatives by local and regional governments and spaces of community participation in six European countries: Austria, Belgium, Germany, Portugal, Spain and Sweden. The project examined areas of engagement and constraints faced by local governments, as well as the transformative character (from a human rights perspective) of the policies and initiatives put forward.

Moreover, a central emphasis of the project was to understand how participation is organised across the different countries and localities: which structures are in place and what influence do they hold, who participates and who remains at the margins, how are power relations and conflicts of interest addressed?

Project outcomes are presented in three outcomes: (1) a mapping that summarizes the situation for each of the six countries and draws some general reflections, (2) an interactive map that provides more detail on the cases reviewed and (3) a toolkit that seeks to create greater understanding of how to operationalise human rights based local policy making, including impacts at the level of the EU.

Findings from the mapping point to important steps being taken at the local level to re-localize food systems and make them more healthy, sustainable, and just. There is an increased recognition by local governments of the role they can play and multiple strategies and initiatives covering critical areas of intervention from communal catering and public procurement, to support for ecological production and local markets, to changes in land use criteria. At the same time, local government is constrained by a number of internal and external factors including a lack of human and financial resources, and EU policies which hinder regionalisation.  

The project’s findings also reflect the immense diversity that exists across Europe – and within countries – with regard to structures of community participation. They highlight the critical relevance of such spaces, and community mobilization, for putting food on the agenda of local governments and pushing for transformative, bottom-up food systems changes. At the same time, and despite many efforts, important challenges and limitations remain, especially with regard to including marginalised groups within these spaces and enabling their voices to be heard. 

The toolkit aims to foster a more comprehensive human rights approach to addressing food system challenges from the bottom-up and promoting inclusive governance structures. It aims to contribute to our collective understanding of strategically engaging with food systems at the local level in Europe and fostering strategies to ensure stronger bottom-up governance at the European Union (EU) level. It explores the potential for multi-level architecture of food systems policies and governance structures and examines how regional policies impact local policymaking.

The mapping, interactive map and toolkit are also available in other languages:

Mapping: French, German, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish

Interactive map: French, German, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish

Toolkit: French, German, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish

For more information please contact Emily Mattheisen: mattheisen@fian.org or Laura Michéle: michele@fian.org

Public development banks must stop funding corporate agribusiness

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There is little to suggest that the Finance in Common summit with over 450 PDBs will be any different, not least because of the failure of last year’s summit to embrace a human rights or community-led approach, but also because of longstanding human rights issues with these publically owned banks.

On the eve of the summit which will take place in Rome, FIAN International, alongside 280 other civil-society organizations and social movements, calls on governments to put an end to state-backed financial support to agribusiness companies and projects that take land, natural resources and livelihoods from local communities.

Poor track record

Public development banks are state-mandated, largely state-funded and state-controlled financial institutions that finance activities that should contribute to the improvement of people's lives, particularly in the Global South. They account for over US$2 trillion a year in financing to public and private companies for things like roads, power plants and agribusiness plantations. An estimated US$1.4 trillion goes to the agriculture and food sector.

Many PDBs have a poor track record when it comes to transparency and investments that benefit agribusiness corporations at the expense of farmers, herders, fishers, food workers and Indigenous Peoples, undermining their food sovereignty, ecosystems and human rights. They have a heavy legacy of investing in companies involved in land grabbing, corruption, violence, environmental destruction and other severe human rights violations.

Their increasing use of offshore private equity funds and complex investment webs –including financial intermediaries – to channel investments makes it very difficult to scrutinise them, as highlighted by recent revelations surrounding German development finance institution Deutsche Investitions– und Entwicklungsgesellschaft (DEG).

Linked to human rights violations

DEG, a subsidiary of Germany’s largest state-owned development bank Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW), provides billions of euros in development finance to Latin America, Asia and Africa.

FIAN Germany has monitored human violations related to investments of these banks for many years, despite major challenges with the banks’ lack of transparency. More than half of the DEG’s annual funding is channelled through financial intermediaries and other banks and funds.

Not even the German government has a clear picture of where this money hits the ground and its real impact. This makes it nearly impossible to force the banks to comply with Germany’s human rights obligations. In cases where FIAN could identify concrete investments in agribusinesses, there was also evidence of human rights violations.

In Zambia, for example, DEG continues to provide the country’s biggest agribusiness Zambeef with tens of millions of US Dollars although FIAN has documented cases of forced evictions involving Zambeef as far back as 2013. In Paraguay, DEG is co-owner of the country’s second largest landowner Paraguay Agricultural Corporation PAYCO, which buys up land on a large scale, including traditional indigenous settlements, for massive agro-industrial projects that make intensive use of pesticides.

“Those cases are emblematic of DEGs investment preferences for large-scale industrial agribusiness which foreclose instead of supporting or promoting equitable, people-centered and sustainable development rooted in the right to food,” said Roman Herre, FIAN Germany policy advisor for land and agriculture.

Unaccountable

A decision by the Belgium’s public development bank, Belgian Investment Company for Developing Countries (BIO), together with other European and North American PDBs to support palm oil production by Feronia PHC in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – despite the violent repression of locally community activists – is a another example.

“Although the demands of the communities affected were relayed to the bank, there was no recourse to justice, no way to hold the bank accountable,” said Florence Kroff, coordinator of FIAN Belgium.

“Even before the decision to finance this project, we raised questions about the risks of human rights violations involved in supporting this agribusiness in the DRC, thanks to an ill-gotten concession on more than 100,000 ha of land, a legacy of the colonial era,” she added.

“In addition to environmental pollution and indecent working conditions on the plantations, Belgian – as well as German, French, Dutch and other – public money is contributing to a climate of violent criminalisation in the region, which has already led to dozens of arbitrary arrests and detentions and the deaths of several land activists.”

It is time to hold public development banks, and the governments controlling them, accountable for the human rights violations that they are fuelling and to stop all future investments that are not rooted in the right to food, a community-led approach and sustainable development.

FIAN International calls for:

  • An immediate end to the financing of corporate agribusiness operations and speculative investments by public development banks. 
  • The creation of fully public and accountable funding mechanisms that support peoples' efforts to build food sovereignty, realize the human right to food, protect and restore ecosystems, and address the climate emergency.
  • implementation of strong and effective mechanisms that provide communities with access to justice in case of adverse human rights impacts or social and environmental damages caused by PDB investments.

New SLAPP of the agro-industrial group SOCFIN

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SOCFIN is an agro-industrial group specialising in the cultivation of oil palm and rubber. The group is controlled by the Belgian businessman Hubert Fabri (54.2% of the shares) and by the Frenchman Vincent Bolloré (39% of the shares). For several years, SOCFIN has been expanding its plantations in several African and Asian countries. In total, the multinational controls more than 400,000 ha of land (which is more than 1.5 times the territory of Luxembourg) and its plantations increased from 129,658 to 194,300 ha between 2009 and 2018.

This expansion is detrimental to small farmers and is often accompanied by violations of the rights of local communities, land conflicts, risk of deforestation, pollution, poor working conditions, as well as criminalization of human rights defenders, among others. 

These impacts have been documented in numerous NGO reports and articles by the press,  but also by UN bodies. In an attempt to silence criticism, the SOCFIN and Bolloré groups have regularly taken legal action. Over the past ten years, nearly thirty defamation proceedings have been launched against NGOs and journalists. The systematism of these procedures demonstrates a real strategy of SLAPPs*. Although almost never successful, these procedures aim to intimidate NGOs and journalists, silence them and make them financially vulnerable.

New complaints of calumny, insults and violation of privacy are brought by the SOCFIN group and Hubert Fabri. They concern a report by the human rights NGO FIAN Belgium on Sierra Leone, as well as a series of press releases from the NGOs (11.11.11, CNCD-11.11.11, FIAN Belgium, SOS Faim Belgium and SOS Faim Luxembourg) and an awareness-raising campaign conducted during the SOCFIN General Assembly in Luxembourg in May 2019. This action, carried out in a totally peaceful manner, aimed to raise public awareness of the situation in the affected communities and to challenge the company's leaders.

In parallel to these proceedings, NGOs were informed that a defamation case has also been launched by SOCFIN in Sierra Leone against a human rights defender from the NGO Green Scenery.

The NGOs prosecuted denounce attempts of intimidation, especially since the NGO’s employees are targeted. 

NGO lawyers Jacques Englebert (Belgium) and Pierre Hurt (G.-D. of Luxembourg) also deplore these practices and insist:

“The NGOs under attack play an essential role as defenders of fundamental rights. They are “watchdogs of democracy” and their expressions therefore benefit from special protection, in particular under the European Convention on Human Rights. Their freedom of expression must be protected at all costs. Indeed, it constitutes one of the essential foundations of a democratic society and one of the essential conditions for its progress and the development”.

The NGOs concerned strongly contest SOCFIN's accusations and claim to have taken the necessary steps to ensure that the facts reported in the reports and press releases published are accurate and in the public interest. They state that they are determined to continue to defend the rights of the affected local communities and are in line with the campaign initiated in France under the slogan #OnNeSeTairaPas.

For press enquiries please contact:
In Belgium:
[FR] Florence Kroff – FIAN Belgium: +32 475 84 56 24 / florence@fian.be
NL] Hanne Flachet – FIAN Belgium: +32 484 96 04 30 / hanne@fian.be
In Luxembourg:
[FR] Marine Lefebvre, SOS Faim Luxembourg: +352 49 09 09 96 26 – mlef@sosfaim.org

*Definition of “SLAPPs”:
The SLAPP can be defined as a legal action aimed at hindering political participation and activism. Most often, it is a civil defamation suit brought against an individual or organization that has taken sides on a public issue. The concept also includes threats of prosecution, because the success of such an operation does not seem so much from a victory in court as from the process itself, aimed at intimidating the defendant (the one under attack).
 

EU launch puts seeds back on the table

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In recent years, negotiations on European regulations on seeds have been undergoing. The general trend points to an increasing defense of patented technologies of genetic modification and the monopoly of industrial seeds. Both destroy agricultural biodiversity and erode peasant seed systems, which feed most of the world population.

Currently, three transnational corporations control two thirds of the global commercial market for seeds and pesticides. Increasingly difficult for governments to withstand this power, the emerging seed laws bring the political sovereignty of peoples and their human rights under the command of shareholders of big business.

On another note, criminalization of those defending access to and control over natural resources, including seeds, as human rights, is on the rise. Paradoxically, while seeds ought to be considered as commons, using and exchanging traditional seeds can be subject to sanctions. 

These issues, core to both internal and external EU policies, and other closely linked topics will be debated on November 16 at the European Parliament, following the presentation of key findings of the Right to Food and Nutrition Watch, entitled “Keeping Seeds in Peoples’ Hands”. Hosted by MEPs Maria Heubuch, Maria Noichl and Bart Staes, the panel will count on the participation of Sofia Monsalve (FIAN International), Guy Kastler (Peasant Seeds Network and La Via Campesina), Bernhard Walter (Brot für die Welt) as well as European Commission officials.

You can register by November 10 by clicking here.
You can access the invitation here.
 

 

 

Speakers’ tour in Europe drew attention to the violence against Guarani-Kaiowá communities

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FIAN International, along with the Indigenous Missionary Council of Brazil (CIMI), accompanied the Guarani-Kaiowá leader Eliseu Lopes, from the community of Kurusu Amba, in a tour throughout Europe to draw international attention to the violence that has plagued for 40 years the Guarani-Kaiowás due to the failure of the Brazilian government to fulfill its international human rights obligations.

Eliseu Lopes, 36, took part in the 27th session of the Human Rights Council of the United Nations (UNHRC) in Geneva (Switzerland) and met with the U.N. Special Rapporteurs on the Rights of Indigenous People, on the Right to Food and on the situation of Human Rights Defenders.

At the HRC, the UN body dedicated to the promotion and protection of human rights worldwide, Eliseu testified that “the inconsistent decision by the Brazilian government to halt the demarcation process [of the Guarani-Kaiowá’s territories] under the guise of ‘dialogue’, has just resulted in direct increase in conflicts in all regions”.

Lopes reported that the political composition of the present government and its negotiations with the racist and violent agribusiness sector resulted in an escalation of unparalleled violence against indigenous peoples in Brazil, giving as example communities in which people were executed by Federal police officers, killed by loggers and ranchers, confronted with invaders and where children died from lack of proper nutrition.

In Belgium, the delegation met with some Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) -including those part of the Subcommittee on Human Rights and dealing with relations with Brazil, as well as with representatives of the European External Action Service (EEAS), who committed to follow-up on the issue of land demarcation in Brazil. The delegation also met with the Brazilian mission to the EU to point out the lack of action by the Brazilian authorities.

Nevertheless, Lopes said that this is not a new problem for Brazil. Even today, indigenous territories are invaded indiscriminately and the Brazilian government does nothing to fulfill its constitutional obligation. Lopes added “[the Guarani-Kaiowás] cannot bear the disregard from the Brazilian government” that appears “unable to protect them” while they live a humanitarian crisis.

“They invade our land today, the government does nothing; titles are tidied up tomorrow, they kick us out of the territory, the government does nothing; and then the day after tomorrow they say they own the land. And my people? It lives under black canvas on the side road, and the government does nothing. We cannot take this anymore“, lamented Lopes.

Overall, the Speakers Tour in Europe was very productive and served as an opportunity to draw attention to the grave violations of the Guarani-Kaiowás’ fundamental individual and collective rights in Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil. Next steps include close follow-up of their case by the U.N. Special Rapporteurs on the Rights of Indigenous People and on the Right to Food.

See pictures of the Speakers Tour

Read below statement by Eliseu Lopes (in Spanish)

Speakers Tour on the Guarani-Kaiowá kicks off in Europe

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Geneva, Brussels, Heidelberg – 16 September 2014: For a second year in a row, a two-week tour starts in Europe on the indigenous Guarani-Kaiowá communities of Brazil. This year’s delegation is composed by Flávio Vicente Machado – Coordinator of the Conselho Indigenista Missionário (CIMI), Regional Mato Grosso do Sul – , and leader Eliseu Lopes-from the community of Kurusu Amba, Member of the Movimento Aty Guasu (the Guarani-Kaiowá Assemly, highest traditional political authority) and of the Articulação dos Povos Indígenas do Brasil- APIB.

The indigenous Guarani-Kaiowá communities strive for over forty years to recover their ancestral territory and, thus, to live in accordance with their culture and traditions, away from hunger, malnutrition and poverty, fighting for their right to food and for other related human rights. “Even with persecutions, with the lack of conditions, the fight does not stop, we are pursuing our rights”, claims member of Guarani-Kaiowá delegation, Eliseu Lopes.

The delegation will meet with high-level authorities in Geneva and Brussels to make visible the violence the Guarani-Kaiowá communities have been facing due to their fight for their right to territory, sensitize European Union (EU) political organs about the application of the EU´s guidelines on human rights defenders, seek support for the struggle of the Guarani-Kaiowá, and to raise public awareness on this issue.

Mr. Lopes will give an oral statement at the 27th session of the Human Rights Council’s (HRC) day of indigenous peoples. The delegation will participate in a side event “The struggle of the Guarani-Kaiowá in Brazil for their territories and against hunger“, co-sponsored by FIAN International, CIMI, Franciscans International and Swiss Church Aid (HEKS).The delegation will then meet representatives of missions and the teams of the Special Rapporteurs on the Right to Adequate Food and on Human Rights Defenders, among others, and with other civil society representatives.

In Brussels, main activities will include public events and debate with Belgian/European citizens, meetings with non-governmental organizations and press work. The delegation will also present their case to Members of the European Parliament as well as to representatives of the European External Action Service (EEAS), and take part of a public debate after the screening of documentary “The Dark Side of Green“.

Press release published by CIMI and FIAN International.

For more information, please visit:

CIMI website

FIAN Belgium website

Right to Food bill in Belgium to set up example at EU level

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FIAN welcomes the proposed framework law “Establishing the obligation of an effective implementation of the right to food by Belgium” made by the Eco-Green party on January 28, 2014. The adoption of such law by the Belgium State would be a great step towards the realization of the human right to adequate food and be a positive example at European level.

The proposed framework law aims to fill the important gap in recognizing the right to food by the Belgian law and setting out the responsibilities of the Belgium government.  The bill is based on the International Guidelines on the right to food and the recommendations of the former Special Rapporteur of the United Nations on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter. It establishes institutional mechanisms to engage different actors in the food chain in a reflection on food issues and imposes the Belgium government to develop a national strategy for the realization of the right to food.

The main objectives of the Act are defined as follows :

  • define a national strategy for food based on a broad social dialogue;
  • support sustainable food systems ;
  • specify the obligations of the State in terms of food aid;
  • enhance the nutritional quality of food;
  • fight against food waste;
  • strengthen the right to consumer information on food;
  • prevent practices of Belgian actors affect the right to food in developing countries.

FIAN calls on political leaders to support this proposal and invites civil society to reflect on the operational implementation of the law.

See below for more information and to download the Right to Food Bill (available in French and Dutch)

Press release by FIAN Belgium

FIAN International welcomes Concluding Observations by UN Committee to Austria, Belgium and Norway

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After the periodic submission of the reports by the states of Austria, Belgium and Norway to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) on November 2013, FIAN sections in these countries have welcomed the concluding observations by the UN  Committee about the implementation of the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR).

In Austria, the UN Committee recommended to the government “to adopt a human rights-based approach to its policies on official development assistance and on agriculture and trade”. At the domestic level, some additional recommendations to Austria related to the concerns pointed out by FIAN Austria during the session include: 1) taking concrete measures to guarantee asylum-seekers’ right to adequate standard of living; 2) intensifying the State’s efforts to assure equal employment for both women and men; and 3) guaranteeing the right to adequate food for people living in poverty to support the progressive realization of the right to adequate food in the context of national food security, by adopting a comprehensive, long-term strategy to combat poverty, based on a thorough examination of its root causes.

On the other hand, the Committee asks Belgium for more aid, less agrofuels, and a specific support to small-scale farmers. Responding to the concerns expressed by FIAN Belgium of the decrease of small farming and the increasing suicide rate by small peasants reported by trade unions in this country, the Committee’s recommendations to Belgium include to protect small farming, specially the youth peasants, and also to adopt the Voluntary Guidelines to Support the Progressive Realization of the Right to Food and the Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land to preserve small peasants. Similarly, the Committee also noted that Belgium has not fulfilled yet its commitment to raise the Official Development Aid (ODA) up to 0, 7% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and is concerned that the ODA has even decreased in the last years.

In terms of Norway, the Committee expressed concerns about the various steps taken by the State in the context of the social responsibility of the Government Pension Fund Global – globally the largest sovereign wealth fund with investments in more than 7000 companies worldwide – which, according to the Committee, has not included the institutionalization of systematic human rights impact assessments of its investments. For this reason, some of the recommendations to Norway include: 1) ”to introduce a management tool that systematically assesses the human rights impacts before and after investments in third countries; 2) to adopt policies and other measures to prevent human rights contraventions abroad by corporations based in Norway. 

All three countries were also encouraged by the Committee to consider ratifying the OP-ICESCR.

For more information, please find below the press releases and the concluding observations by the CESCR to Austria, Belgium and Norway, as well as other useful links:

UN Treaty Webcast (watch here the Concluding Observations sessions by country)

ETO Consortio website for human rights beyond borders. Read here the news article on the topic.

Press Release by FIAN Austria (available in German)

Press Release by FIAN Belgium (available in French)

Press Release by FIAN Norway (available in Norwegian)

Parallel Report Belgium

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On November 7, 2013, Belgium NGOs, including FIAN, reported the role of the State party on the implementation of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), requesting it should be applied as part of the national legal order; informed the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights on the discussions concerning the establishment of a National Human Rights Institution in accordance with the Paris Principles; and asked how rights conferred by the Covenant can be guaranteed to everyone residing in Belgium emphasizing in the situation of peasants.

Main concerns on ETO’s included European Union (EU) agro-fuels regulations, specifically surpassing the negative human rights implications, and the lack of access to adequate food and nutrition by local communities undermined from agro-energy projects co-financed by Belgium.