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UPR: Malawi must protect Phanga village community

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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

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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

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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

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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

All community members should receive compensation from Kaweri Coffee

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In January 2025 the government of Uganda compensated 54 plaintiffs (representing almost 550 evictees). This was a first step towards putting into effect a Kampala High Court ordered consent for compensation. The whole case concerned 401 plaintiffs (representing approximately 4,000 evictees); 143 of them rejected the amount offered as being far below the value of their lost land belongings, and their suffering due to the eviction and violence and are continuing their legal battle.

“What we encountered since 2001 is an injustice and violence due to the loss of our land. Those of us who chose to continue the battle in the court will do so until justice is done,” says Peter Kayiira, one of the complainants.

Powerful advocacy

Over the last decade of their struggle, and in a remarkable display of creativity and resilience, women evictees formed an advocacy group using art to amplify their message. They composed songs and skits that captured the difficult realities of their struggle and their demands for justice.

These performances served as a unique way to communicate their plight to decision-makers, making their voices heard in a way that resonated deeply with both the local community and the broader audience. They also galvanized support for their cause, proving that advocacy can take many forms and be as powerful as it is creative.

This court-ordered compensation is a step forward but also a drop in the ocean. The lives of the evictees have worsened in the last 23 years, and many are destitute. At the same time Kaweri Coffee Plantation Ltd., a subsidiary of the Hamburg based Neumann Kaffee Gruppe continues to make profits.

“We have suffered a lot; we lost everything – this compensation is symbolic and I am in poverty conditions so I can’t refuse it,” said one community member.

FIAN has been supporting the evictees in advocacy and monitoring work since the beginning of their struggle, submitting regular reports to UN human rights mechanisms (ESCR/CEDAW/UPR) and assisting with the making of a documentary.

“The Ugandan government must ensure that the rights of the evictees are restored and adequate legal remedies and compensation are provided as suggested by the UN ESCR committee,” says Valentin Hategekimana, Africa Coordinator at FIAN International

Together with other allies, FIAN will continue to support the evictees in their struggle for justice.

Read more about the Kaweri case in this factsheet

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

Beyond numbers: rethinking food security monitoring in conflicts and crisis

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As climate disruptions, war, and systemic inequality intensify, the world is confronted with a deepening food emergency. Yet the international systems in place to address it are failing to deliver effective, coordinated solutions.

Areas that are often quoted in the media as “teetering on the brink of famine” or being at “the edge of starvation” already have several thousands of people dead or rapidly dying of starvation and of illnesses related to or exacerbated by a lack of adequate food. Gaza and Sudan are two prominent examples.

In Beyond Numbers: Rethinking Food Security Monitoring in Conflict and Crisis (also available in Arabic here) FIAN analyzes the international community’s approach to starvation, posing several key questions including: What is a “famine”? Who decides whether a famine is occurring? How is it monitored? And what are the implications for the food sovereignty and human rights community?

“We must rethink how we measure famine — too often, we focus on body counts and crisis thresholds, while ignoring the deeper, structural causes that set the stage for disaster,” said FIAN policy officer for corporate accountability Ayushi Kalyan.

“The real challenge is not just counting the dead, but identifying the real, structural risks earlier and addressing the root causes of famine and starvation before they spiral into catastrophe.”

Situations of right to food and nutrition violations in crisis situations, including famines, do not emerge in a vacuum. They are the result of long-term, systemic marginalization of communities, of their exclusion in monitoring efforts and decision-making, and of long-term violations of economic, social, and cultural rights.

In such cases, what can early action and real prevention look like? In a recent report, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Michael Fakhri, offers a human rights lens to starvation, indicating that starvation reflects “a State’s fundamental abandonment of its human rights obligations… and when a State or any other actor systemically violates the right to food, this is an early warning that indicates some degree of intention to starve a population.”

“Mainstream monitoring tools are not designed to assess the root causes of food crises in conflict or occupation settings,” said FIAN policy officer for monitoring and advocacy Emily Mattheisen.

“These methods obscure the power dynamics at play and miss the voices of those most affected. To truly address hunger, we must integrate grassroots insights and human rights indicators into our monitoring systems.”

This briefing aims to open a dialogue between the right to food and humanitarian communities, in order to learn from each other while also imagining new ways of supporting affected communities and populations, creating effective human rights-based monitoring mechanisms and greater accountability around actions and structural conditions that result in right to food violations, including starvation and famine.

Download briefing here.

Download Arabic version here

Read Arabic press release here.

For more information please contact Ayushi Kalyan Kalyan@fian.org or Emily Mattheisen Mattheisen@fian.org

FIAN International pays tribute to outgoing Secretary General and welcomes new leadership

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Sofia strengthened the International Secretariat’s strategic capacity, linking its mission to critical global issues such as climate change, digitalization, financialization, war and conflict and the often-overlooked realm of care work.

Her remarkable ability to inspire, unite, and lead has earned her immense respect and admiration among colleagues, partners, and government counterparts worldwide.

“Sofia’s leadership of FIAN and strong personal commitment to supporting grassroots struggles and advocating internationally has placed FIAN at the center of the right to food movement,” said FIAN International Board President Priscilla Claeys. 

“FIAN International expresses our deepest gratitude to Sofia for her exceptional leadership, unwavering dedication, and lifelong commitment to advancing the right to food and nutrition,” added Juana Camachos, FIAN International Vice President.

“Her legacy will continue to inspire us, and we wish her every success and fulfillment in her future endeavors. In 2025 Sofia will continue to be part-time with FIAN in other capacities, contributing with her huge experience and inspiring us in our shared pursuit of human dignity and human rights for all.”

Sofia will be succeeded by Ana Maria Suarez Franco, who has extensive experience of international advocacy. Ana Maria has been with FIAN for more than two decades, most recently serving as permanent representative to the UN in Geneva.  

FIAN’s International Council welcomed the change of leadership approved by the International Board and reaffirmed its commitment to stand alongside communities, Indigenous Peoples, peasants, fishers, food workers and others fighting for systemic change in food systems.   

The council, made up of representatives from FIAN national Sections in almost 20 countries, also adopted a new strategic plan to guide FIAN International’s work in the coming years.  

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

Sowers of Life and Resistance: Building collective feminist leadership for food sovereignty

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The Sowers of Life and Resistance booklet is a profound testimony of women and young women from across the region who participated in the first edition of the Feminist School, organized by the Alliance for Food Sovereignty of the Peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean. This initiative provided a much-needed political and educational space to confront the intersecting challenges of patriarchy, racism, and neoliberalism.

The school, held virtually and in-person throughout 2023, was about more than training — it was a collective reimagining of food power relations within food systems. With sessions addressing agroecology, the linkage of the right to food and women’s rights, the impact of systemic gender violence, and the construction of intergenerational collective leadership, the participants shared experiences, knowledge, and tools to strengthen their communities and struggles.

“We are not just defending food sovereignty; we are transforming relationships with nature and within our communities,” shared one participant. “Through collective care and action, we amplify our voices and confront injustices that silence us.”

The booklet invites readers into this vibrant journey, offering reflections and methodologies that grassroots women leaders are using within their territories and organizations. Chapters cover themes such as feminist economy, political participation, and the fight against gender violence, emphasizing agroecology and collective care as vital practices for resistance against all forms of discrimination.

By weaving together diverse knowledge systems and the ancestral knowledge of Indigenous and Afro-descendant women, the school builds bridges across generations. Its methodologies, like the Agroecological Booklog, reveal the hidden contributions of women to local economies, highlighting their vital role in food production and care.

“Without feminism, there is no agroecology,” states the booklet, which calls for a depatriarchalization of food systems and governance. This collective effort challenges the exploitation of women’s labor and the corporate control of resources, advocating instead for equitable policies rooted in solidarity and sustainability.

As a living document, the booklet aims to inspire action in communities worldwide, providing tools to replicate the school’s methodologies and continue the fight for a feminist and human rights-based transformation of corporate food systems and towards food sovereignty.

Download the booklet in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

 

For more information please contact Teresa Maisano: maisano@fian.org

UN treaty on transnational corporations must put people over profit

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Despite long-standing demands from affected communities, social movements and civil-society organizations, no binding global legal framework exists to hold big-agro, big-food, big-tech and big-financial corporations accountable for human rights abuses around the world. This lack of global regulation allows TNCs to escape accountability by finding legal loopholes, subcontracting their obligations to entities in their value chain, or using their economic groups or holding structures in different jurisdictions.

Transnational corporations, which dominate global value chains concentrate power in today’s globalized economies, frequently using their position to harm human rights and the environment in the pursuit of profit – as FIAN has witnessed in recent cases in Senegal and the Balkans, to name just two. Most of these abuses and violations have no legal consequences nor remedies for those affected.

“The existing asymmetries between trade and investment law give rights to corporations, and weak voluntary human rights standards only suggest how corporations should respect human rights, especially from a national perspective and without clear liability regimes,” says FIAN International’s permanent representative to the UN, Ana María Suárez Franco. 

“This allow corporations to exploit numerous loopholes in a globalized world where global value chains are controlled by a few powerful economic actors.”. 

Vibrant civil society participation despite setbacks

In 2024, the intergovernmental working groups negotiating the UN TNC treaty adopted a technical decision to provide more resources that will intensify the negotiations. Nonetheless, during the last year most of the consultations were held on methodologies rather than substance. Moreover, abruptly in September, the dates of the negotiations were postponed from late October to the week before Christmas, a decision which impacts the ability of many participants to attend – notably civil-society organizations, social movements and representatives from affected communities

Despite this, FIAN International and many of our civil society partners from around the world will attend negotiations from 16 to 20 December.

Beyond negotiating the text of the treaty, the 10th session will aim to define the road map of intersessional negotiations to be held in 2025 and the role of legal experts announced earlier this year.  Civil society, social movements, Indigenous Peoples part of the Treaty Alliance, the Global Campaign to Reclaim Peoples Sovereignty, Dismantle Corporate Power and Stop Impunity (Global Campaign), the Feminists for the Binding Treaty, the ESCR-Net and the Young Friends of the Treaty will attend the negotiations and continue advocating for states to actively participate in the negotiations.

The collective aim is to strengthen the currently weakened draft text and ensure robust prevention mechanisms that go beyond mere due diligence and strong gender-responsive provisions. We are also seeking extraterritorial liability regimes that put the burden of proof on perpetrators and include joint liability along the value chains, as well as effectively ensuring people's access to remedy where controlling companies are based and where they operate.

Transnational, intergenerational justice, gender and intersectionality

Concerned with the triple planetary crisis of climate change, pollution and destruction of biodiversity, many environmental organizations are demanding a strong environmental component in the TNC treaty, incorporating the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.

“A treaty that does not protect the environment nor make those responsible for environmental harm liable, will not be effective enough to protect humanity from corporate greed and ensure the remediation of losses and damages, including regarding their intergenerational impact,” says Stephan Backes, secretary of the Consortium on Extraterritorial Obligations (ETO Consortium) and corporate accountability officer at FIAN.

“Transition, including towards more just, healthy and sustainable food systems, cannot be fair without robust corporate accountability beyond borders and generations”.

The differential impact of corporate harm on women and LGTBQ+ people has been strongly argued by the Feminists for the Binding Treaty. Access to remedy, protection of rightsholders, prevention and liability must be negotiated including gender-sensitive regulations that allow people with diverse gender identities and women to access justice and remedy and to adequately participate in their definition.

During the week of negotiations, FIAN will stay vigilant urging states to take prompt effective action and continue advocating for human dignity and nature at the UN. We urge all member States to respond to the demands of human rights and environmental defenders and actively negotiate a treaty that is effective to stop corporate injustice to ensure a more just world for all – today and in the future. 

For more information or media interviews please contact Amanda Cordova (cordova-gonzales@fian.org) 

Stop Big Food and transform food systems

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FIAN Brazil and the Zago Brothers have created a satirical film exposing the cynical nature of this industry fueled by an unholy alliance of Big Food, Big Money, Big Agro and Big Tech, who portray themselves as heroes but whose interests rarely align with the needs of the people.  

Overwhelmed by the magnitude of a multi-billion-dollar industry that enjoys so much impunity, we can often feel paralyzed – accepting that we are powerless and unequipped to challenge it.  

But as the film shows, this exploitative system is being exposed for what it is, and it can be challenged.  

 

 

This comic strip turned animation – which began with an ESCR-Net series “The power of the 99% to stop corporate capture” – takes us through segments of big-scale food production and its consequences, from monoculture to loss of biodiversity, environmental destruction, displacement, misleading marketing, food manipulation, and more, culminating in a freakish musical presentation in an odd attempt to win over the public.  

The food sovereignty and agroecology movement is gathering momentum. People are demanding change. It is time for a binding international treaty to put an end to corporate impunity and hold business to account for environmental destruction and human rights abuses. 

For more information or media interviews please contact Amanda Cordova (cordova-gonzales@fian.org) or Tom Sullivan (sullivan@fian.org)

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