Civil Society Forum Parallel to the FAO Summit
Stop the crisis, change the food system!
From November 13th to 17th, more than 400 delegates (number determined by available funding[1]) from 70 different countries representing small scale food producers’ organisations of farmers, fisherfolk, Indigenous Peoples, food and rural workers, rural youth, women and pastoralists, as well as food insecure city dwellers and NGOs will gather in Rome for a parallel initiative to the World Summit on Food Security organised by the FAO. The Civil Society Forum 2009: People's Food Sovereignty Now! is organised under the responsibility of an International Steering Committee (ISC) formed by many global and regional civil society organisations (CSOs) representing food producers and affected peoples.
At the World Food Summit in 1996, when there were an estimated 830 million hungry people, governments pledged to halve the number by 2015. Today, in 2009, more then 1 billion people are undernourished, the highest number in four decades.
The world we live in is facing a structural and multifaceted crisis. Climate, energy, financial and economic crises further aggravate the persistent food crisis, which, more than the other crises, has triggered a wave of protests in across dozens of countries. This clearly shows how equitable access to food is essential to the well-being of people, and to social justice and democracy.
The Forum will continue its work on the human rights-based governance of food systems, initiated by the Civil Society Forum in Rome in 1996. Several issues will be debated to define a comprehensive plan of action for CSOs, including: the relation between rural and urban populations and sustainable methods to guarantee access to food; climate change and models of production that can cool down the planet and reduce people's vulnerability to climatic variation; and, access to natural resources, land grabbing and ensuring rights to land in a gender equitable way.
The current situation is not the result of any sudden natural disaster, but the fruit of decades of the same wrong policies. The Civil Society Forum: People’s Food Sovereignty Now! is committed to changing the dominant agricultural and food policies by effectively dealing with the root causes of hunger and poverty and presenting the proposals that have emerged from the long resistance of small food producers and the urban poor. There will be no solution to the world’s multiple crises without a central role for civil society and a dialogue with governments.
Media Agenda
13th November – Beginning of the Forum: People’s Food Sovereignty Now! – Evening Mistica
Venue: Città dell’altra economia, Largo Dino Frisullo (ex-Mattatoio, Testaccio, Rome) – Venue to be confirmed.
14th November, 10 am – Opening of the Forum: People’s Food Sovereignty Now!
with a delegation from FAO, from IFAD and from the municipality of Rome.
Venue: Città dell’altra economia, Largo Dino Frisullo (ex-Mattatoio, Testaccio, Rome) – Venue to be confirmed.
16th November, 12 am – Appointment with the media
Testimonies – Leaders from different countries will be available for interviews.
Venue: In front of the FAO – Venue to be confirmed.
17th November, 1:30 pm – Press Conference for the closure of the Civil Society Forum: People’s Food Sovereignty Now!
Venue: Iran Room (on the 1st floor of Building B), FAO, Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, Rome.
Contacts for the press
Emanuela Russo
Press Officer
Civil Society Forum 2009: People's Food Sovereignty Now!
Cell Italy: +39 3490068499
media@peoplesforum2009.foodsovereignty.org
Languages: Italian, Spanish, English
Social movement's leaders from seventy different countries from Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe will be available for interviews.
Organizer
The International Steering Committee of the Forum is responsible for the organisation. See the list of organizing organisations.
One does not sell the earth upon which the people walk.
1. With the support of NORAD – Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, the Municipality of Rome, IFAD, the Catalan Government, SDC – Swiss Devlopment Cooperation, the Brazilian Government, Bread for All, Action Aid, EED, Oxfam and the self-financing of the social movements.
