Nyéléni Newsletter no 52: Nyéléni process: Recognizing the power of people’s movements

Illustration: Andrés Mateo Ayala Luna @calma_88

In 2007 the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) played a vital role in uniting small-scale food producers and their allies to establish a shared vision of food sovereignty and implement strategies to make it a reality. Over time, a robust global movement for food sovereignty emerged, gaining significant political recognition. Together, we have achieved the democratization of global food and agricultural arenas, including the reform of the Committee on World Food Security. Our struggles also influenced food sovereignty policies in various national contexts and successfully secured political acknowledgment of peasants as rights holders through the ratification of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas.

However, our achievements are now under threat due to an extended period of systemic crises. Right-wing forces, authoritarian regimes, and the corporate capture of democratic governance spaces are on the rise globally, accompanied by the dismantling of the United Nations multilateral system. Human rights violations against peasant and Indigenous communities, along with climate change, biodiversity loss, armed conflicts, and hunger, are escalating rapidly. Furthermore, renewed threats to food sovereignty come from new business configurations, in which hedge fund speculation firms and digital technology titans join forces to oil the wheels of the failing agro-industrial production system.

In this context, the IPC advocates for a new global Nyéléni process, leading up to the next Nyéléni Global Forum in India in 2025. Recognizing the power of people’s movements, we aim to strengthen solidarity and unity by bridging local and global struggles. We are striving to adopt an intersectional perspective to address the multi-dimensional global crisis effectively.

By collaborating with climate justice, workers’ rights, feminist, solidarity economy, anti-war, youth, and other movements, we seek to resist the corporate takeover of governance spaces, safeguard human and collective rights worldwide, protect ecosystems, and secure a dignified life on Earth for present and future generations.

IPC for food sovereignty, Friends of the Earth International, La Via Campesina, Transnational Institute

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