Publication type: Press Release

SOFI 2025 neglects structural causes of hunger

Posted on by Tom

Heidelberg/Geneva. The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) 2025 report, launched at the UN Food Systems Summit +4 (UNFSS+4) this week, notes a slight decline in global hunger to 673 million people in 2024. The improvements take place mainly in Latin America and Asia, while Africa and mainly low-income countries remain the hungriest places in the world. For FIAN the significant advances made in Latin America are a good example of the results of public policies based on the right to food and nutrition that can make a real difference.  

Secretary General of FIAN International, Ana María Suárez Franco, emphasizes that hunger can be reduced quickly through decisive action.

“Brazil, for example, has reduced the number of people suffering from severe food poverty by more than 80 per cent in just one year. Hunger is not inevitable! Minimum wages, school meals, cash transfers to those most in need and public procurement programes prioritizing small-scale food producers can quickly and effectively reach those affected. However, this requires political will to redistribute wealth,” says Suárez Franco. 

Ignoring corporate power concentration 

The report fails to address the structural drivers of hunger: corporate concentration and power within food systems, financial speculation, and the weaponization of food and ignores how agribusiness profits from crises and how states enable corporate impunity. 

SOFI 2025 attributes rising food prices to “external factors” like COVID-19 and climate change while ignoring critical drivers within the food system. Notably absent is any mention of corporate price-gouging by agribusiness giants who reaped record profits during recent food crises, nor does it adequately address how financial speculation by hedge funds on grain futures artificially inflates prices – a phenomenon the report misleadingly labels as simple “market volatility.”  

The gender analysis similarly falls short, acknowledging disparities but failing to confront the systemic undervaluation of women’s unpaid care work that sustains food systems and demands recognition and redistribution.  

Most glaring is the report’s silence on the growing dominance of digital platforms in reshaping food systems, even as it praises improved data collection – a blind spot that ignores how tech monopolies are accelerating corporate consolidation while marginalizing small-scale producers. These omissions reveal a troubling pattern of avoiding scrutiny of powerful economic actors while attributing hunger to apolitical “shocks” rather than structural inequities. 

“The report’s silence on corporate abuse is deafening,” says Sabine Pabst, environmental officer at FIAN. “It blames climate change but not the agribusinesses driving deforestation, monocultures and overall environmental degradation.” Furthermore, it ignores the critical role played by territorial markets in connecting small-scale producers with consumers”. 

Gaza: Corporate Complicity in Weaponized Starvation  

The report highlights that 100 per cent of the population in Gaza is facing high levels of acute food insecurity, indicating a severe crisis. It also notes a significant increase in malnutrition among children in Gaza City, with nearly one in five children under five years old experiencing acute malnutrition. Nonetheless, it omits explicit reference to the use of food as a weapon in Gaza and the complicity of corporations in the genocide. 

In Gaza, over 95 per cent of farmland has been rendered unusable by Israeli military operations—including the deliberate destruction of 71 per cent of greenhouses and 83 per cent of agricultural wells—while fishers face lethal violence and near-total bans on accessing the sea, collapsing local food production and weaponizing starvation against civilians. 

UNFSS+4 continues distracting and draining UN energy from urgent action  

The UNFSS’ persistent failure to address structural power imbalances and roll back corporate power in food systems is evident in the protagonism of the World Economic Forum and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development in this year’s agenda. Moreover, the UNFSS+4 puts a blind eye on critical issues such as the use of food as a weapon of war, food apartheid, the drastic reduction in public development aid, rising authoritarianism, criminalization of human rights’ defenders, and repression of social movements and Indigenous Peoples. Instead, governments should step up efforts in the UN Committee on World Food Security to implement its Framework for Action in Protracted Crisis and a series of other policies which address the structural drivers of current food-related injustices. 

Civil society demands omitted by SOFI 2025  

Departing form states’ right to food obligations, we demand that they advance on the just taxation of Big Agribusiness, Big Food, Big Finance and Big Tech, through robust elements in the negotiation of the ongoing Tax Convention, at the UN General Assembly; active engagements and strong regulations in the context of the UN Treaty on Transnational Companies and other Business Enterprises with regards to Human Rights negotiated at the UN Human Rights Council; advance redistributive agrarian reforms, leveraging the opportunity of the International Conference of Agrarian Reform and Rural Development to take place in Colombia in February 2026 and the implementation of states` International environmental obligations.     

FIAN has consistently rejected SOFI’s techno-fix approach and the false corporate solutions promoted by the UNFSS. Joining social movements, we instead call on states to support people’s solutions, including strong support for the transition to agroecology, ending corporate capture of the UN, and ensuring the right to self-determination of Palestinian people and an end to the use of food as a weapon of war and genocide.

We will continue pushing for the transition to food systems that place people & planet above corporate profit! 

For more information please contact Ana María Suárez Franco: Suarez-Franco@fian.org

Agrarian reforms key to climate justice

Posted on by Tom

A new briefing paper, Land for Food and Climate Justice: The Case for Redistributive Agrarian Reforms released today underscores a powerful yet underutilized solution to the intersecting crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, food insecurity, and inequality: redistributive agrarian reform. Drawing on case studies from Argentina, Mali, and India, the publication presents evidence that placing land and ecosystems under the control of Indigenous Peoples, small-scale food providers, and rural communities is key to achieving climate justice and food systems transformation.

The paper, based on the landmark report Lords of the Land: Transnational Landowners, Inequality and the Case for Redistribution, highlights how global land inequality and resource grabbing—particularly so-called “green grabs” made in the name of environmental protection—are accelerating environmental destruction and undermining human rights.

“Corporate control over land is not only driving environmental collapse but also pushing millions into hunger and marginalization,” said Philip Seufert, policy officer of FIAN International.

“The solution lies in the hands of those who have always safeguarded ecosystems – small-scale food providers and Indigenous Peoples. It’s time to prioritize redistributive tenure policies as a climate strategy.”

Key messages from the briefing include:

  • Land inequality is a major driver of environmental degradation. One percent of farms now control over 70% of farmland globally. This concentration of land is deeply linked to increased carbon emissions, deforestation, and biodiversity loss.
  • “Green grabs” are displacing communities. The paper shows that over 20% of large-scale land deals today are made in the name of environmental objectives. These land grabs, including those earmarked for carbon markets and biodiversity schemes, often displace people who are the most effective stewards of land and ecosystems.
  • Small-scale food providers feed the world. Despite using just 35% of cropland, they produce over half of the world’s food, manage landscapes more sustainably, and support greater biodiversity. Their continued viability depends on control over land and natural resources.

The briefing paper includes three case studies that illustrate how rural communities in Argentina, Mali and India are setting the foundations for sustainable and just food systems, anchored in human rights and social and environmental justice.

The briefing paper calls for a bold rethinking of climate and food policy: agrarian reform and redistributive tenure policies must be recognized not only as social justice tools but as ecological imperatives.

“Small-scale food providers, Indigenous Peoples and rural communities are not just victims of climate change – they are frontline climate actors,” said Philip Seufert.

“If we are serious about just transitions and climate justice, land redistribution must be at the center of global policy efforts.”

Download the full briefing paper here.

For media inquiries or interviews, please contact: sullivan@fian.org

Global land grab highlights growing inequality

Posted on by fredsaxo

Massive tracts of land in the Global South are being bought up by international investors and ultra-rich corporations, fueling growing inequality – part of a wider global trend of wealth transfers away from the poor and working people.

The report from FIAN International and Focus on the Global South, Lords of the Land: Transnational Landowners, Inequality and the Case for Redistribution, puts the spotlight on the world’s ten largest transnational landowners – who together control 404,457 km², an area the size of Japan.

This is part of a global land rush. Since 2000, corporations and financial investors have acquired an estimated 65 million hectares of land – twice the size of Germany. Today, 70 percent of global farmland is controlled by the largest 1 percent of giant industrial-scale farms.

Forced displacements

This concentration has grave implications for food security, threatening the livelihoods of 2.5 billion smallholder farmers and 1.4 billion of the world’s poorest people, most of whom rely on agriculture for survival. It is also driving violence, forced evictions, and environmental destruction while also contributing significantly to climate change.

Virtually all the top global landowners named in the report have been implicated in reports of forced displacements, environmental destruction, and violence against communities.

One of the main players is the US pension fund TIAA, which has acquired 61,000 hectares in Brazil’s Cerrado region, one of the world’s most biodiverse areas. In the Cerrado, approximately half of the land has been converted into tree plantations, large agro-industrial monocultures, and pastures for cattle production — amid reports of violent land grabs, deforestation and environmental destruction which already shows signs of impacting the climate.

TIAA almost quadrupled its global landholdings between 2012 and 2023 — from 328,200 hectares to 1.2 million hectares.

Inequality

Land concentration undermines state sovereignty and peoples’ self-determination, with distant corporations controlling vast tracts of land across multiple jurisdictions.

The industrial-scale monocropping, often carried out on this land, is a major driver of climate change, biodiversity loss, and ecosystem destruction, preventing just transitions to more equitable and sustainable food systems and economic models.

These developments reflect a broader global trend of rising inequality and wealth concentration. Since the mid-1990s, the richest 1% of the world’s population has captured 38% of all additional accumulated wealth, while the poorest 50% have received only 2%.  An estimated 3.6 billion people, or 44% of the world population, now live on less than US$ 6.85 a day, below the threshold for a dignified life.

Because land grabbing is largely driven by global capital and the accumulation of land across jurisdictions by transnational corporations and financial entities, international cooperation is essential. The upcoming International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD+20) in Colombia early next year offers a critical opportunity for governments to agree on measures that end land grabbing, reverse land concentration, and ensure broad and sustainable distribution of natural resources.

In a world facing intersecting crises – from climate breakdown and food insecurity to entrenched poverty and social inequality – and amid reconfiguration of the global balance of power, now is the time to move away from neoliberal policies that have benefited very few, and to create a more just and sustainable global future for all.

Watch an expert panel discussion on the report here:

For more information or media interviews please contact Anisa Widyasari anisa@focusweb.org or Tom Sullivan sullivan@fian.org.

Solidarity not exploitation: we stand with food workers from farm to table

Posted on by fredsaxo

At the beginning of May, on International Workers’ Day, we celebrate the strength and sacrifices of workers all over the world. But there are workers who are persistently overlooked – the millions who labour to produce, process and serve people their food, most of whom are in the informal economy – who we focus on in this edition of Supermarket Watch.

Whether we are talking about peasant farmers in Peru, street vendors in Zimbabwe or gig workers delivering food in India, workers across the food system – in production, processing, distribution or preparation – are essential for bringing food to people's tables and yet they remain among the most exploited workers in the world.

 
Peasants and landless farmers are often forcefully removed from ancestral lands by industrial agriculture or pushed out due to climate change and eco-destruction and must struggle to survive. Many migrate to become underpaid and undocumented workers in the agriculture industry of wealthier countries. These are the unseen workers who pick fruits, harvest vegetables, and pack meats for far away consumers — often with no healthcare, legal protection, or right to unionise.
 
In cities, street and market vendors, many of whom are women, face harassment and violence on a daily basis. They provide nutritious and accessible food to low-income communities but are still not recognised as workers providing essential services and typically have no access to any social protections.
 
Then we have the food delivery workers, dependent on a platform economy governed by algorithms that promises freedom and efficiency but only offers them insecurity, arbitrary penalties and meagre pay.
 
Food connects us all, but the people producing and supplying it are often rendered invisible. Their labour is considered “unskilled,” their struggles are ignored, and their organising is suppressed. In the month when we celebrate International Workers’ Day, we must own up to the human cost of our increasingly corporatised, exploitative and profoundly unequal food system. Every meal is made possible by workers whose rights — to rest, to organise, to live with dignity — are too often denied. The vast majority of food workers in the global South, and many in the global North, don't have access to basic social protections. With retirement pensions, for instance, after decades of hard work, farmers, fishers, farmworkers and food vendors across nearly the entire global South are either completely without a pension or only get paid a pittance.
 
Food sovereignty cannot be dissociated from labour justice. That means fair wages, healthy and safe working conditions, social protection and collective bargaining. For the millions of workers in the informal economy, it also means ensuring their rights to full legal and social protections and participation in policy-making. This is possible to do, and, for instance, there are examples out there already of global South countries where governments, usually pushed by strong social movements, have enacted public pension systems designed to provide a dignified retirement for small farmers and their families. At the upcoming 113th International Labour Conference in Geneva, governments, workers and employers the world over will be discussing labour standards for both those in the informal economy and those in the platform economy. It is crucial that the needs and interests of food workers, in all their diversity, are front-and-centre in these discussions. 
 
Let's fight together for a food system rooted in solidarity, not exploitation!
 
Read the latest issue here.
 
For more information contact Laura Michéle michele@fian.org
 

International community must stop weaponization of food and starvation in Gaza

Posted on by fredsaxo

By blocking 116,000 metric tonnes of food at its border with Gaza – enough to provide basic rations for one million people for four months – Israel and its supporters violate their obligation to respect the right to food for the Palestinian population, impeding access to adequate food needed for survival and a life of dignity.

No one in Gaza has access to sufficient food and water. Some, including young children, have already starved to death with thousands facing acute malnutrition. Gaza’s agricultural infrastructure and crops have been decimated, and agricultural systems have almost collapsed. Severe fuel restrictions have crippled water infrastructure and electricity supply, leaving only limited power from solar panels and generators.

Food prices in the Gaza Strip have surged by 1,400 percent since the culmination of the last ceasefire, making it nearly impossible for affected communities to secure affordable food. This crisis impacts not only the current population but also severely threatens future generations’ health and other related rights.

Currently, residents in Gaza rely primarily on canned vegetables, rice, pasta, and lentils, as staples like meat, milk, cheese, and fruit have all but disappeared. The result is a significant deficiency in both the quantity and quality of food needed to fulfill their right to adequate food and nutrition. Children are going to bed starving, according to the UN.

This dire escalation stems not only from recent hostilities but also from Israeli occupation, systemic oppression and longstanding human rights violations of the Palestinian people. These include the destruction of food and health infrastructure, restricting water supplies, environmental destruction and other violations of economic, social, and cultural rights – as well as the right to self-determination. These ongoing violations have precipitated a food and health catastrophe that the international community has allowed to persist, breaching its obligations to ensure the right to food within and beyond their borders and for present and future generations.

The international community must act to redress this violation, adopting all necessary measures to prevent the weaponization of food and uphold the rights of the people in Gaza. States should immediately cease any support — be it military, economic, or political — to Israel and the transnational corporations complicit in this ongoing genocide.

In the short term, nations are urged to deploy diplomatic efforts to facilitate the delivery of food supplies currently blocked at the border. However, these measures alone are far from sufficient. The international community must restore local food systems and infrastructure in Gaza, respect the Palestinian’s right to self-determination and ensure access to food, remedy and justice. It is impossible to realize human rights and exercise food sovereignty in the context of settler colonialism and occupation.

The establishment of the Hague Group is a positive step towards addressing this crisis, but additional states must join this initiative and immediately take effective actions to ensure justice and peace for the Palestinian people.

For more information or media queries contact Ana María Suárez Franco: suarez-franco@fian.org

 

 

International Day of Peasant Struggles: Joint Statement of Peasant and Solidarity Organizations

Posted on by fredsaxo

Land grabbing continues to intensify, driven by agribusiness, mining, energy projects, and so-called “development” plans. Forests and ancestral lands are cleared, our territories are converted into commercial sites, and water sources are privatized – all to make way for profit-driven investments.

When peasants resist, they are met with repression. They are harassed, surveilled, and falsely labeled as “anti-development” and enemies of the state. Many are imprisoned on fabricated charges. Others never return home. Their right to organize is under attack and their communities live in fear. Meanwhile, those who destroy the land and violate human rights enjoy protection, and are even rewarded.

This is a systematic effort to dismantle resistance, silence dissent, and clear the way for capital accumulation. And yet, peasants continue to rise. They organize, resist, and assert their right to land, food, and life with dignity.

On this day, we honor the farmers of Samahan ng Nagkakaisang Mamamayan ng Barangay Sumalo (SANAMABASU) Hermosa, Bataan for their courage. Since 2009, the organization has been tirelessly defending their land against Litton & Co., Inc and Riverforest Development Corporation (RDC)’s attempt to convert it into industrial use, leading to their criminalization by the corporation. Although the farmers, charged with non-bailable offenses, were released on bail on January 8, 2025, the community now faces renewed repression, as RDC has filed ejectment cases to displace them from their homes and farmlands.

On September 16, 2024, a group of independent human rights experts mandated by the United Nations Human Rights Council (3 Special Rapporteurs and 2 Working Groups) sent letters to the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and to Litton & Co., Inc. and Riverforest Development Corporation (RDC). Both letters highlighted significant human rights concerns regarding the situation in the community. Key issues included forced evictions, housing demolitions, restricted access to cultivated land, criminalization, and the prohibition of agricultural activities.

In a response dated January 16, 2025, RDC refuted the allegations. They asserted that the land in question was unsuitable for agriculture, claiming that no legitimate farmers were tilling it. They accused certain community members of exploiting the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) for personal gain and described their actions as illegal. RDC defended its eviction efforts as lawful, claiming that they are targeting only those obstructing development plans.

Meanwhile, the response from the government of the Philippines dated January 23, 2025 claimed that the syndicated estafa case filed against the farmers “have already been dismissed due to insufficiency of evidence.” They also laid down some other efforts of the government on agrarian reform. However, this is untrue as farmers continue to attend court hearings in the two pending cases of syndicated estafa cases. 

On January 28, 2025, the House Committee on Agrarian Reform conducted a Congressional inquiry on the criminalization and harassment faced by farmers and agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) in the country. Despite this being a positive development, the Congress is now in session break until June to give leeway for the upcoming elections in May. This means that another lobbying effort would be needed in the next Congress starting July, as a new set of representatives will occupy the Congressional seats.

With these developments, we reaffirm our commitment to their cause and to all farmers facing the same dilemma. We raise our voices in unity to demand:

  1. The implementation of agrarian reform and the redistribution of land to those who till it;
  2. The protection of ancestral domains and Indigenous territories;
  3. An end to land grabbing and corporate-led development aggression;
  4. The repeal of laws and policies that favor corporations over communities;
  5. Justice for victims of land-related killings, arrests, and harassment;
  6. An end to the criminalization, militarization, and red-tagging of peasant leaders and advocates;
  7. The recognition and protection of the rights of peasants, as enshrined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP); and
  8. Food sovereignty, not corporate-controlled food systems.

We honor those who have fallen, those imprisoned for defending the land, and those who continue to fight in the face of threats and fear. Your courage lives on in every seed planted, every barricade built, every piece of land reclaimed, and every collective struggle for justice won.

Land to the tillers. Justice for the oppressed.

Long live peasant resistance!

Signed: 

Kilusan para sa Repormang Agraryo at Katarungang Panlipunan (KATARUNGAN), Philippines

Anti-jindal & Anti-POSCO Movement (JPPSS) Odisha, India

Bangladesh Food Security Network- KHANI, Bangladesh

Centre Europe – Tiers Monde (CETIM)

Claudio Schuftan, PHM and WPHNA

Coastal Action Network (CAN), India

Feminist Dalit Organization (FEDO), Nepal

FIAN Austria

FIAN Indonesia

FIAN International

FIAN Nepal

FIAN Sri Lanka

FIAN Switzerland

Focus on the Global South

Gaza Urban & Peri-urban Agriculture Platform (GUPAP), Gaza, Palestine  

Habitat International Coalition-Housing and Land Rights Network

Lanka Organic Agricultural Movement (LOAM), Sri Lanka

National Fisheries Solidarity Movement in Sri Lanka

Pakistan Kissan Rabita Committee, Pakistan 

Participatory Research & Action Network- PRAAN, Bangladesh

Prof. Dr. Anne C Bellows, Syracuse University, USA

Seed and Knowledge Initiative (SKI)

UBINIG, Bangladesh

Youth's Forum for Protection of Human Rights, Manipur, India  

Zambia Alliance for Agroecology and Biodiversity (ZAAB)

For more information please contact Yifang Slot-Tang: Slot-Tang@fian.org

UPR: Malawi must protect Phanga village community

Posted on by fredsaxo

The report builds on the previous report submitted to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and highlights the current situation of the affected community members who have returned to Phanga village in the central Malawi district of Dedza a decade after they were forcefully evicted.

The community members’ land was sold to Crown Plantations, a Southern African company, but was never exploited by the company and was subsequently sold by village chiefs to several new owners. The affected community members contest these transactions and claim they are the original owners, under traditional customary ownership rules.

“Community members in Phanga village, have shown the courage to defend their human rights by deciding to retake their land and defend it,” says Tobias Jere, Project manager at the Center for Social Concern.

One of the key recommendations provided by the UN ESCR Committee requires the State of Malawi to:

“Accelerate the implementation of comprehensive land titling and registration systems to secure titles for individual and communal landowners, promptly resolve overlapping claims through transparent mechanisms, and pay special attention to Phanga village community members in Dedza district.”

Valentin Hategekimana, Africa Coordinator at FIAN International says it is crucial that the Malawi state implements the UN ESCR Committee recommendation to ensure that the community members in Phanga village are adequately compensated.

“They must be protected from any further forced evictions and their customary rights over their land must be protected,” he adds.

Read the full UPR parallel report on Malawi here.

For more information, please contact Valentin Hategekimana hategekimana@fian.org

FIAN International annual report looks back on 2024

Posted on by fredsaxo

FIAN’s latest annual report takes stock of some of the main struggles we are engaged in around the world for the right to food and nutrition.

During 2024, FIAN joined forces with grassroots groups and international alliances to oppose the ongoing weaponization of food, a key driver of global hunger, notably in Palestine. We also began new research on the failure of the international community to adequately respond to famines in conflict areas.

The sea is a major source of nutrition for many. Working with local partners, FIAN helped to expose the appropriation of aquaculture affecting fisher peoples and coastal communities in Tamil Nadu, India. We also supported UN advocacy led by the World Forum of Fisher Peoples, amplifying grassroots demands for recognition of fisher peoples and coastal communities, asserting their rights to land, water, and fisheries.

We marked the 20th anniversary of the UN’s Right to Food Guidelines in June with allies in the Global Network for the Right to Food and Nutrition (GNRTFN) calling on governments to incorporate the right to food into national legislation, regulations, policies and programs.

We have been working for some time with the feminist school of the Latin American Alliance for Food Sovereignty and in 2024 we published a booklet showcasing their experiences which aims to be a tool to inspire others to action. The school builds bridges across generations and reveals the hidden contributions of women to local economies, highlighting their vital role in food production and care and motivating them to take more power in decision making.

At COP 29, we called for people-led solutions and a just transition to agroecology and sounded the alarm on the socioeconomic and environmental risks of digitalized and financialized carbon markets in debates around the topic in the UN.

We joined forces with allies to advocate for strong corporate accountability for human rights and environmental harm – and for an end to corporate capture of the UN. This included denouncing new attempts to derail negotiations on a binding treaty to regulate transnational corporations.

FIAN’s International Council, which comprises 19 national sections, met in Portugal at the end of the year and adopted a new Strategic Plan to guide our global work until 2030.

The great work of our national Sections continued to be a major source of inspiration.

For example, FIAN Uganda reported a marked decrease in military violence against fisher people following years of grassroots activism and campaigning. And we celebrated with FIAN Colombia the culmination of more than a decade of advocacy work which contributed to a groundbreaking constitutional amendment mandating the state to guarantee the human right to adequate food.

We look forward to many more positive examples like these in the year ahead, as we join forces with FIAN Sections and our allies around the world fighting for a global transition to agroecology, food sovereignty and everyone’s right to food and nutrition.

Download the annual report here.

CEDAW Sri Lanka: Government must ensure equal rights to land, natural resources and decision making

Posted on by fredsaxo

Rural women, including peasants, fish workers, plantation workers  and other small-scale food producers make up more than 50 percent of all food production in Sri Lanka. However, they are facing significant challenges, including access to land and other natural resources, financial support and participation in governance and decision making.

They continue to face marginalization without legitimate membership-based organizations to access resources, services, and welfare benefits. There is limited attention to their welfare in social security programs, and their rights of association and access to fair markets remain limited. This situation is further aggravated by environmental marine pollution, climate change and the extensive use of agro-toxics in the country.

These and other issues were highlighted in a parallel report by a collective of grassroots organizations including FIAN Sri Lanka and the National Fisheries Solidarity (NAFSO), engaged in advocacy during the review of Sri Lanka by the CEDAW Committee in February 2025.

“Fisherwomen’s concerns are overlooked, and gender-sensitive policies in the sector are lacking,” says NAFSO’s Chandra Kanthi Abeykoon, who represented the CSO collective during the CEDAW review in Geneva.

“The contribution of women to food production is not valued adequately. They are hardly involved in decision-making about the food production process and not recognized legally as members in cooperatives.”

The CEDAW review of Sri Lanka made a series of recommendations to the government including the adoption of a national action plan on rural women and girls, adequate access to income-generating opportunities, social benefits and health care. It also called for them to be equally represented in decision-making processes, including on rural development programmes.

The CSO collective will closely monitor how the government follows up the recommendations, according to Thilak Kariyawasam, Executive Director of FIAN Sri Lanka.

“We will continue our advocacy towards the development of a comprehensive national strategy on agriculture and food security for all, with a view towards a transition to agro-ecology including binding transition plans that include gender-sensitive support mechanisms for rural populations and Indigenous Peoples, in line with UNDRIP, UNDROP, CEDAW and ILO conventions,” he added.

In Sri Lanka, around 1.1 million people are undernourished and more than half of the population (approx. 12.3 million people) cannot afford a healthy diet. Around 15 percent of children under the age of five suffer from acute malnutrition. Malnutrition among children of tea plantation workers is more than twice as high as in urban areas. Climate change also threatens the right to food, especially for poorer people.

For more information, please contact Sabine Pabst pabst@fian.org

CEDAW Nepal: Government must ensure disadvantaged women’s access to employment and decision-making

Posted on by fredsaxo

Women and girls in Nepal, in particularly those belonging to marginalized communities, like rural and indigenous women, are more likely to be poor than males, despite the significant contribution they make to the economy.

In Nepal land, forest and river resources play a vital role in rural women's day-to-day livelihood. Most of them sustain their livelihoods and supplement their income from resources in forests, rivers and wetlands. FIAN Nepal in its parallel report to the CEDAW highlights how marginalized Dalit and indigenous women are denied employment with equal and living wages and lack of access to agricultural land and social security.

 “In FIAN Nepal’s experience, women farmers, indigenous and Dalit women are facing extreme food insecurity when they are working full time as farmers,” says Tilak Adhikari, FIAN Nepal Programme Manager.

“The local government operating programs have a focus on farmers, however, women farmers, especially from marginalized indigenous and Dalit communities, are not able to access the programs due to not being able to follow the complicated procedure adopted by government, and due to nepotism and widespread corruption.”

The parallel report further sheds light on the impact of industrial destruction and pollution on women’s right to safe drinking water and a clean and healthy environment. It also highlights the negative impact of declining agriculture production, deteriorating health of livestock, landslides and other environmental challenges. It shows how women and girls disproportionately suffer the impacts of climate change and environmental destruction due to their greater reliance on natural resources and primary roles in securing food, water and fuel.

The CEDAW Committee, in its concluding remarks, expressed concerns, that in particular, rural women, indigenous women, migrant women, women with disabilities and women living in poverty, are disproportionately affected by climate change related impacts including natural disasters and the loss of biodiversity. It regreted the lack of consultations with rural and Indigenous women on construction projects by foreign investors and private enterprises.

The committee recommended the government of Nepal to enable women’s active participation in the creation and operation of new funding arrangements for responding to environmental loss and damage and to ensure that women are equally represented in the development, adoption and implementation of legislation, policies and programmes on climate change, disaster response and disaster risk reduction.            

“The government must apply special gender-sensitive support mechanisms to eliminate poverty, hunger, malnutrition, and the lack of enjoyment of the right to adequate food and nutrition among women and girls particularly of those groups who belong to underprivileged and marginalized communities,” says Laxmi Gurung, Monitoring and Evaluation Coordinator at FIAN Nepal.

“This includes climate and environmental justice for women and girls and the support of the transition to agroecology and other traditional ways of livelihood including fishing”.

Download the FIAN Nepal parallel report here

For more information, please contact Sabine Pabst pabst@fian.org