29 October 2014, Rome – FAO and La Via Campesina (LVC), one of the largest social movements in the world, met today at FAO Headquarters in Rome to identify new concrete areas for joint collaboration to strengthen their partnership, formalized through an exchange of letters signed in October 2013.

“This meeting is the result of the hard work displayed by FAO and La Via Campesina in coming together to bring strengths and capacities to the table, in order to further the collaborative work in the fight against hunger,” said Rolf Hackbart, Deputy Director of the Office for Partnerships, Advocacy and Capacity Development, at the welcoming of the meeting.

This technical meeting tried to match convergences between the renewed FAO Strategic Framework and LVC field activities. “FAO has been implementing a renewed Strategic Framework with the aim to improve the delivery and impact of FAO’s programmes by effective translation of our normative work into country-level impact,” explained Hackbart.

The meeting

Salomón Salcedo, FAO Senior Strategy&Planning Officer, introduced the five strategic objectives of the renewed framework and stressed the importance of their linkages to the Regional Initiatives, derived from the FAO Regional Conferences. “To implement the Strategic Objectives at regional and local level, field programme activities are crucial,” said Salcedo . “In this area in particular, the role that La Via Campesina can play is key,” highlighted Rolf Hackbart.

The meeting focused on the Strategic Objectives 2 and 3,“Make agriculture, fisheries and forestry more productive and sustainable” and “Reduce rural poverty”, respectively. FAO presented their implementation strategies through the Regional Initiatives and the main areas of works for each of these objectives.

On the other side, La Via Campesina presented its activities on seeds and agroecology through concrete projects, which can match Strategic Objective number 2, and its activities on family farming, with a special focus on youth, that link Strategic Objective 3.

Both discussions ended on action planning to include LVC capacities and experiences into FAO field projects in order to maximize the value of the partnership and deliver results in line with Strategic Objectives.

Communications

The meeting also addressed the topic of “Communication for social needs”. LVC presented its communication needs, channels, tools and issues and FAO briefed on its communications capacity and projects.