23 May 2014, Rome – FAO and the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) are stepping up their cooperation to try and put those who produce food at the centre of the global debate on food and agriculture. In an exchange of letters that happened today, FAO recognized IPC's important role as a global platform for small-scale food producers, rural workers’ associations, grassroots and community-based organizations and social movements that brings together over 800 organizations and 300 million small-scale food producers. FAO believes that the new partnership will boost food security and nutrition at the global and regional level by allowing the...

Representatives of ten civil society organizations from Latin America and the Caribbean met FAO Director-General  during the Regional Conference this week in Santiago de Chile, to discuss about civil society contributions to South-South Cooperation, climate change,  land access and food sovereignty. The representative from the Latin American Agro-ecological Movement (MAELA, in Spanish), highlighted the Regional Conference as a formal space for the dialogue and  the positioning of civil society before the Goverments of the region, more specifically, of the small-scale food producers of the region. Graziano da Silva stressed the importance of deepening the dialogue between civil society and...

A meeting of more than 50 representatives of international, regional and national Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) based in Africa opened in Tunis today to discuss priority issues related to the development of agriculture and rural areas in Africa. Participants at the two-day consultation at Carthage Thalasso Hotel, hosted by l’Union Maghrébine et Nord Africaine des Agriculteurs (UMNAGRI), include farmers, artisanal fisherfolk, herders/pastoralists, landless, urban poor, workers in the food sector, women, youth, indigenous people, forest dwellers and other various constituencies. “It has become a tradition now in FAO, to organize consultative meetings with Non-State Actors (NSA) as an integral part of the...

Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) from Asia and the Pacific opened a two-day Consultation today to discuss their joint concerns about the future of small farmers, landless farmers, farm workers and other concerned stakeholders.  This parallel Consultation is organized just prior to FAO’s Thirty-Second Regional Conference for Asia and the Pacific (APRC), also in Ulaanbaatar, 10-14 March. Forty participants representing different CSOs and their organizations from the region and Mongolia are participating in the Consultation and their conclusions will be shared with delegates through formal interventions during the APRC. In his welcome remarks as the host organization’s president, Bayartsaikhan Nadmid, of the...

FAO and the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP) have joined forces towards the establishment of a Hunger Free Community of Portuguese Language Countries. FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva and the Executive Secretary of the CPLP, Murade Isaac Miguigy Murargy, signed a Technical Cooperation Programme, uniting FAO and the CPLP today. With a total allocated contribution of $500,000 USD, the programme will support the CPLP and its governments, parliaments and non-governmental partners in implementing a Regional Strategy for Food and Nutrition Security approved in 2012. “The partnership between the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP) and FAO represents a milestone for...