FIAN International annual report looks back on 2023
Denouncing the weaponization of food, highlighting impacts of AI & digitization of agriculture, opposing corporate capture of food and supporting grassroots struggles
With the launch of the annual report, FIAN International looks back on 2023, a year in which food was weaponized in many conflicts. The Russian invasion of Ukraine had already added another layer to the global food crisis. It continued to dominate media headlines until the Hamas attack on Israel in October and Israel’s counterattacks on Gaza – both part of a protracted conflict in which access to farmland, food and water has been a major component.
Our State of the Right to Nutrition report in March highlighted that 70 percent of people live in areas affected by conflict, according to WFP figures. It examined how powerful economic and political actors use conflict, occupation and war to maintain dominance, including over food systems. FIAN has consistently called for an end to hostilities, including the use of food as a weapon.
We joined forces with other food sovereignty voices to advocate for an end to corporate capture of the UN and global food governance. This included a campaign for greater accountability from the July UN Food Systems Summit +2 Stocktaking Moment, a corporate-dominated follow-up to the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit.
In October, we once again joined food sovereignty and human rights allies advocating for a UN binding treaty to regulate transnational corporations and other businesses, successfully resisting attempts by some states to derail the process and arguing for an explicit reference to environmental protection.
There were many positive developments. The UN Human Rights Council recognized the risks associated with digital technologies, which FIAN had highlighted during the year. A UN special procedure was announced for the Declaration of the Rights of Peasants (UNDROP) – a pivotal milestone in raising the status of peasants and other people working in rural areas.
During 2023, FIAN continued to support longstanding grassroots struggles, including the West African Caravan for the right to land, water and peasant agroecology, a feminist school with the Latin American Alliance for Food Sovereignty, and EU and UN advocacy by communities affected by natural resource exploitation in Senegal, Bosnia, Serbia and Colombia.
As always, we were inspired by the great work of our national Sections around the world, such as FIAN Sri Lanka’s successful defense of the rights of street vendors and FIAN Brazil’s advocacy against the temporal framework bill which denies the land rights of Indigenous Peoples.
These affirmations of grassroots and international solidarity will continue to fuel our dedication to fighting for agroecology, food sovereignty and the right to food and nutrition in the year ahead.
Read the annual report here.
