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Call to participate in the “Land, Territory and Dignity” ForumSocial Movements/NGOs/CSOs parallel event to the International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development(ICARRD) facilitated by the International NGO/CSO Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) Porto Alegre, March 6-9, 2006 The Council of the FAO in its 128th session in June 2005 approved the proposal which called for an International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD) to be held in 2006. This constitutes a critical element of the FAO program to fulfil commitments of the 1996 World Food Summit, the 2001 World Food Summit: five years later , the World Summit on Sustainable Development and the Millenniums Development Goals (MDG). The FAO Council welcomed the proposal of the Government of Brazil to host the Conference that will take place in Porto Alegre from 7 - 10 March, 2006. The "International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development - new challenges and options for revitalizing rural communities" (ICARRD), will be the 2nd international conference on this subject, following the World Conference held in 1979. The International NGO/CSO Planning Committee on Food Sovereignty (IPC), which organized the NGO/CSO Forum on Food Sovereignty in Rome 2002, and which received the Forum's mandate to implement its Plan of Action that strongly requested to the FAO to support the realisation of “genuine agrarian and fisheries reform, rangeland and forestry reform, and achieve comprehensive and integral redistribution of productive resources in favour of the poor and the landless”. The IPC has worked since then to make the voices of social movements and civil society organizations heard in international forums where issues related to Food Sovereignty are discussed, particularly in the FAO. Therefore, since the launching of ICARRD, the IPC was identified as the main facilitator for participation of social movements and civil society organizations in the Conference. The IPC will facilitate this task through the Forum “Land, Territory and Dignity", an independent and self-organized space aiming to debate and articulate processes and proposals as an input to the action of the social movements and to the Intergovernmental Conference. What is IPC? The International NGO/CSO Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) is a global network of social movements and NGOs/CSOs concerned with food sovereignty issues and programmes. It includes social organizations representing peasants, small farmers, landless peasants, fisherfolks, Indigenous Peoples, agricultural workers and NGO networks with particular expertise and a long history of lobbying, action and advocacy on issues related to food sovereignty and agriculture. The IPC mechanism has an elected regional structure with regional focal points in South Asia, South East Asia, West & Central Asia and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, North America and Europe. For organizing the Forum, the IPC elected a political steering committee made up of representatives of social movements, and an operational committee with more technical staff. Objectives of the Forum
Central Themes of the Forum 1. Principles and Recommendations for a Genuine, Integral and Original Agrarian Reform based on Food Sovereignty and Human Rights. 2. The Concepts of Land vs. Territory. 3. Strategies for Occupation, Recovery and/or Defense of Land, Territories, Forests, Fishing Grounds, Housing, etc. 4. Gender, Generations and Youth perspectives in the struggle for, and/or defense of, land, territory and natural resources. 5. Resistance to the dominant production and development model, agrobusiness and Privatization, the Silent Counter Reform in the Sea, Counter Agrarian Reforms and the Neoliberal Policies of Access to Land and Other Resources of the World Bank, Governments and Other Actors. 6. Resistance to Repression, Militarization, Military Occupation, "War on Terrorism”, and Criminalization of social movements. Working groups will be formed following these themes. Each working group will produce a summary of the current situation for their issues, a proposed plan of joint actions, and one or two paragraphs for a final declaration. Participants will work with a methodology based in a few plenary sessions to allow active participation in workshops on the central themes. Based on the conclusions of the workings groups a final declaration of the Forum will be drafted and then submitted to the Intergovernmental Conference. Self-organized workshops: On March 6 in the afternoon there will be the possibility to self-organize workshops which will run parallel to the Forum's working groups. The number of slots will depend on the number of rooms available at the venue. More information on how to register a self-organized workshop will follow. Date and venue The Forum "Land, Territory and Dignity" will take place from 6 - 9 March in Porto Alegre/Brazil. The Forum will be held at PUC building facilities. Accommodation and local transport will be organized by IPC. Simultaneous translation into Spanish, English, Portuguese and French will be provided. Funding FAO, IFAD, the Government of Brazil and other governments have committed themselves to secure the funds needed for financing a large number of delegates and carrying out the Forum in equal conditions as the intergovernmental conference. Organisations are also doing an effort on their own to ensure a maximum participation. Our objective is to bring together 400 delegates. In order to guarantee a strong and balanced representation of different constituencies and regions in the Forum, the political steering committee agreed upon the following quotas
According to these quotas, the IPC Focal Points have been asked to prepare a list of participants from their regions and constituencies. Self-financed participants A quota of 10% of the total number of participants financed by the Forum itself was fixed for self-financed participants. If the Forum has enough funds to invite 400 persons, for example, then 40 self-financed persons can join the Forum on their own. The purpose is to have participation that is representative and balanced based on geography and sector, and not based on who can afford to pay. Moreover, self-financed participants will be asked to finance on a one-to-one basis persons from the rural social movements organized in IPC. For example, if an NGO wants to bring 5 people to the Forum, they have to fund further 5 people chosen by IPC. Self-financed participants have to send their request to participate to the IPC focal point in their region, with copy to IPC secretariat in Rome: Please see the list of focal points attached. IPC's guests IPC will invite people from different sectors (NGO, academic, journalists, etc.) to join the Forum. The quota for guests is also 10% of the total number of participants financed by the Forum. Guests have to pay their costs on their own. The majority of these guests will be helping the Forum in tasks like translation, contact with press, facilitation and rapporteurs of working groups, etc. For more information please contact the IPC focal point coordinating the participation process in your region .
“Land, Territory and Dignity” ForumDraft ProgrammeSocial Movements/NGOs/CSOs' parallel event to the International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development(ICARRD) facilitated by the International NGO/CSO Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) Porto Alegre, March 6-9, 2006 The Council of the FAO in its 128th session in June 2005 approved the proposal which called for an International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD) to be held in 2006. This constitutes a critical element of the FAO program to fulfil commitments of the 1996 World Food Summit, the 2001 World Food Summit: five years later , the World Summit on Sustainable Development and the Millenniums Development Goals (MDG). The FAO Council welcomed the proposal of the Government of Brazil to host the Conference that will take place in Porto Alegre from 7 - 10 March, 2006. The "International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development - new challenges and options for revitalizing rural communities" (ICARRD), will be the 2nd international conference on this subject, following the World Conference held in 1979. The International NGO/CSO Planning Committee on Food Sovereignty (IPC), which organized the NGO/CSO Forum on Food Sovereignty in Rome 2002, and which received the Forum's mandate to implement its Plan of Action that strongly requested to the FAO to support the realisation of “genuine agrarian and fisheries reform, rangeland and forestry reform, and achieve comprehensive and integral redistribution of productive resources in favour of the poor and the landless”. The IPC has worked since then to make the voices of social movements and civil society organizations heard in international forums where issues related to Food Sovereignty are discussed, particularly in the FAO. Therefore, since the launching of ICARRD, the IPC was identified as the main facilitator for participation of social movements and civil society organizations in the Conference. The IPC will facilitate this task through the Forum “Land, Territory and Dignity", an independent and self-organized space aiming to debate and articulate processes and proposals as an input to the action of the social movements and to the Intergovernmental Conference. Objectives of the Forum
TENTATIVE PROGRAMME
Working groups: Central Themes of the Forum 1. Principles and Recommendations for a Genuine, Integral and Original Agrarian Reform based on Food Sovereignty (and reform of access to other resources: water, forests, fishing areas, biodiversity, etc.), also based on the human rights to food, access to productive resources and to territory, and to the self-determination of indigenous peoples, and which is respectful of our cultural, social and historical diversity, and which takes into account the good and bad lessons of past and on-going reforms, and that is an agrarian favor in favor of an "agriculture with farmers," of "fisheries with fisherfolk," of "forests with forest people," etc. 2. The Concepts of Land vs. Territory , and other resources (water, forests, fisheries, etc.): cosmovision of agrarian reform, indigenous peoples' and others, collective rights, traditional law, multiple use and access rights (i.e. when pastoralists, farmers and forest all share use rights in traditional systems), self-determination and autonomies. How can we develop a "territory perspective" for the agrarian question that is respectful of the visions and needs of diverse actors: peasant and family farm communities and organizations, indigenous peoples, nomadic pastoralists, artisanal fisherfolk, forest peoples, rural workers, migrants, colonists (people moved into new territories sometimes as a result of government programs), and others? 3. Strategies and Tactics for Occupation, Recovery and/or Defense of Land, Territories, Forests, Fishing Grounds, Housing, etc .: exchange of experiences, strategies, tactics, training for occupations, models of production, and marketing of products from occupations, cooperation among members of occupations, alliances, legal strategies, solidarity with occupations, and lessons, principles and recommendations for our diversity of circumstances. 4. Gender, Generations and Youth: women and youth in access to and management of resources, and the role of gender and age in our organizations that are involved in the struggle for, and/or defense of, land, territory and natural resources. And, how can we give gender and generational perspectives to the other central themes? 5. Resistance to Privatization, Counter Agrarian Reforms and the Neoliberal Policies of Access to Land and Other Resources of the World Bank, Governments and Other Actors: land administration, cadastre, delimitation, titling and individual parcelization, de-collectivization, land markets for buying-selling and renting, land banks, the end of land distribution, the recovery of land reform areas by former landlords, and reconcentration; and the privatization of land, water, forests, life, knowledge, biodiversity, fishing areas, oceans, intellectual property, credit, extension, marketing, health care, education, road-building, etc., and the dismantling of support for peasant agriculture and for the marketing of their products. 6. Resistance to the Dominant Model of Production and Development : process of neoliberal globalization and the transformation and insertion of agriculture, forestry and fishing into the integrated chains of transnational corporations (production under contract, export monoculture, plantations, industrial fishing, forestry and farming, biofuels, biotechnology and GMOs, nanotechnology, etc.), the displacement of local populations by agribusiness and monoculture, megaprojects (dams, airports, ports, canals, highways, etc.), "nature reserves," tourism projects, "reconstruction" after natural disasters and wars, "green neoliberalisms" (ecotourism, biopiracy, payment for environmental services, etc.), and the trade policies that promote exodus and displacement from rural areas (WTO, FTAs, CAP, Farm Bill, Capital Flows, etc.), And as a product of these displacements, the situation and demands of rural workers and migrants. 7. Resistance to Repression, Militarization, Military Occupation, "War on Terrorism," and Criminalization of movements (attempts to label our movements as "criminal," to de-legitimize and repress legitimate struggle): experiences, tactics to defend ourselves, ways to make these issues more visible, and plan of struggle. Each working group will produce a summary of the current situation for their issues, a proposed plan of joint actions, and one or two paragraphs for a final declaration. Participants will work with a methodology based in a few plenary sessions to allow active participation in workshops on the central themes. Based on the conclusions of the workings groups a final declaration of the Forum will be drafted and then submitted to the Intergovernmental Conference. Self-organized workshops: On March 6 in the afternoon and 7 in the morning there will be the possibility to self-organize workshops which will run parallel to the Forum's working groups. The number of slots will depend on the number of rooms available at the venue. More information on how to register a self-organized workshop will follow. Plenary Sessions : Two evenings, open to all participants to the Forum and to ICARRD, will be dedicated to big plenary sessions, held at Tesourinha, with 3-5 speakers each; must include WOMEN speakers. 1. Strategies for Occupation and Recovery of Land and Territories: (MST, indigenous representative, FSPI-Indonesia, Zimbabwe?). 2. Resistance to Repression, Criminalization and Counter-Agrarian Reform (Colombia or Paraguay-resistance to repression; South Asia; Counter-agrarian-reform-Nicaragua; South Korea-counter-agrarian reform; Privatization of fisheries-Chile).
March : on March 8 the Forum will join in the afternoon the Rural Women's March. The whole Forum's programme on March 8 should focus on gender aspects of the topics of the day. Rally : on March 9 there is going to be a big rally to the conference venue while the Forum's final statement is being read to the governments. Party : on March 9 in the evening there is going to be a big party at Tesourinha.
Date and venue The Forum "Land, Territory and Dignity" will take place from 6 - 9 March in Porto Alegre/Brazil. The Forum will be held at the PUC University building facilities. Accommodation and local transport will be organized by IPC for delegates, other invites will be self-financed and organised. Simultaneous translation into Spanish, English, Portuguese and French will be provided.
DOCUMENTS
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