The fourth session of the open-ended working group (OEWG) on a United Nations Declaration on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas is taking place at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, from 15-19 May 2017. Celso de Carvalho, Officer-in-Charge at the FAO Office in Geneva, addressed the opening session of the OEWG on behalf of José Graziano da Silva, Director-General of FAO. Mr. de Carvalho underlined that the draft Declaration addresses some of the most relevant and established areas of work of FAO aimed to rapidly advance the achievement of Zero Hunger and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. He reaffirmed FAO’s full support to the UN draft Declaration, which will help in reaching the potential of peasants and other people working in rural areas and overcoming the challenges that they face in their everyday life. Mr. de Carvalho further stressed that “by producing 70% of world’s food, family farming, peasant agriculture and small-scale food production are of vital importance for food security worldwide and contribute to a fundamental extent to the economic, environmental and social sustainability of food systems”.

The fourth session of the OEWG was opened by Ms. Lene Wendland from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, who highlighted that one of the key role of the working group was to ensure “the protection and the promotion of rights of millions of people around the world that often face tremendous difficulties accessing an adequate standard of living, and are subject to displacement, discrimination and marginalization”. H.E. Mrs. Nardi Suxo Iturry, Permanent Representative of Bolivia to the UN in Geneva and chair-rapporteur of this fourth session of the OEWG, emphasized that the draft Declaration would have a positive impact on the Sustainable Development Goals as 13 of the 17 goals of the Agenda 2030 would be directly favored by this Declaration.