MORE AND BETTER
An International Campaign for Food,
Agriculture and Rural Development Aid
to eradicate Hunger and Poverty
MINUTES of the meetingof
November 30 and December 1st 2003
in Rome
PARTICIPANTS
Kenton LobeCanadian Food Grains Bank (Canada)
Dick HoehnBread for the World Inst. (U.S.)
Aksel NaerstadThe Development Fund (Norway)
Hildegun GjengedalThe Norwegian Farmers' Union (Norway)
Patrick MulvanyITDG (UK)
Sergio Marelli FOCSIV (Italy)
Laura AmoreCampaign Secretariat - FOCSIV (Italy)
Andrea Ferrante AIAB /IPC (Italy)
Maryam Rahmaniam Cenesta Near East/IPC (Iran)
Livia ZoliAzione Aiuto (Italy)
Sarojeni Rengam PAN Asia-Pacific /IPC (India)
Tina Liamzon ANGOC/ IPC (Philippines)
Bazgenawork Wolde MedhinCRDA (Ethiopia)
Miia Toikka KEPA (Finland)
Thilak KariyawasamGreen Movement of Sri Lanka
Neth Dano SEARICE (Philippines)
Javier Pasquier CIPRES (Nicaragua)
Jaison Cainglet Asia Pacific Network on Food Sovereignty (Philippines)
Victor Alanis Unión General Obrera Campesina y Popular A.C. (México)
Rodolfo ArayaUnión General Obrera Campesina y Popular A.C. (Honduras)
Tatyana BraginaNGO Naurzum/IPC (Kazakhstan)
Francisco Pascual jr. IRDF (Philippines)
Karim Akrout APNEK Association for the Protection
of Nature and Environment / IPC (Tunisia)
Francisca Rodriguez La Via Campesina /IPC (Chile)
David King IFAP
John WilkinsonIFAP
-Several other organisations said they wanted to participate, but could not due to other meetings.
-Kenya National Farmers' Union and ROPPA (Farmers organisations in West Africa) have said they join the campaign.
-Representatives from some other organisations attended part of the meeting as observers
-Mr. MacMillen, Director Technical Cooperation Divisionat FAO, Mr. Cooke, Director Technical DivisionatIFAD and Mr. Strippoli, Director External Relations Division at WFP, greeted the meeting and took part in the meetingas Resource Persons
-Ms Clayton, Special Adviser to the Director General in FAO, and the Norwegian Minister of Agriculture, Lars Sponheim, greeted the meeting.
AGENDA OF THE MEETING
- Presentation of the participants in the meeting and short reports of their work and interest in the MORE AND BETTER
- Formal issues : nature, platform and goals, membership and methodology of work
- Name and logo
- The “better” purpose: principles and suggestions
- The trends in support for agriculture and rural development
- Information material
- Financial support and secretariat
- Plans for next year
OUTCOMES OF THE MEETING
1.Presentation of the participants in the meeting and short reports of their work and interest in the MORE AND BETTER
The organisations participating in the meeting presented themselves, their work and interest in the campaign. Some of this information will be available on the web-page for the campaign when it is established.
2. Formal issues : nature, platform and goals, membership and methodology of work
- Nature
The nature of the campaign is to be both a network and a campaign but with an emphasis on the national level. This means that national campaigns or organizations’ work at national level may be carried out in different ways and on different items according to their own needs but all will exchange views, work together, learn from each other, develop some common policies and also approach some international institutions on the commonly agreed issues.
- Platform
The campaign is based on a minimum platform and will continue to develop it. The minimum platform is:
"The international campaign will seek:
to increase the level and quality of development assistance directed towards food, agriculture and rural development to eradicate hunger and poverty"
- Goals
- Significantly increase the level and quality of support for agriculture and rural development;
- Together develop some criteria for what is good aid for agriculture and rural development;
- Enlarge the network world - wide: involve more organizations from the OECD countries and many more from developing countries;
- Develop further cooperation with FAO, IFAD and WFP but also the IPC because of the resources they can offer to our network.
- Membership
The participating organizations newly approaching the Campaign and present in the meeting, warmly expressed their interest towards the campaign. Nevertheless, not everyone will be an active member of the campaign. Some of them are expected to give a feedback in this sense after their regional consultations.
It is agreed that the membership will not involve a formal structure. It will be flexible and as inclusive as possible with a view to extendingparticipation and support for the campaign from organizations at national levelsand also local, regional and international levels. The core of the campaign will be the national campaigns. Minimum standards for participation are: interest, level and commitment.
On the ‘right to vote’ issue, it has been decided to reach decisions by consensus.
- Methodology of work
The email Yahoo group should continue to be used as the first means of communication.
The Campaign agreed on establishing a Coordination Committee balanced and representative of all the members. The Committee should take decisions on issue previously discussed by email. The Committee should be composed by :
for Africa: for Latin America :
-CRDA Ethiopia – person to be indicated- to be indicated by the participants from
-KNFU Kenya –person to be indicated Latin-America
for Asia and Pacific:for Europe and North America:
-IRDF Philippines –person to be indicated- UK Food Group - Patrick Mulvany
-GMSL Sri Lanka – person to be indicated- The Norwegian Food Group (Probably The Development Fund Norway – Aksel Naerstad )
- Bread for the World Inst. US – Dick Hoehn
- Canadian Foodgrains Bank - person to be indicated
-Italian Campaign on Food Sovereignty – person to be indicated
-a representative from IFAP
-La Via Campesina is also invited to provide a member in the co-ordination committee. Via Campesina will decide if the organisation wants to join the campaign and be on the committee
To be noted that for the Middle East region and other parts of Asia, an increase of engagement vis-a-vis the Campaign will be considered at their regional consultation which is to be held in March 2004. West African organisations joining the campaign will also be asked if they would like to have a representative in the co-ordination committee. The co-ordination committee has the mandate to adopt members to the committee according to the guidelines above.
People appointed at the Co-ordination Committee, or their organizations, should be prepared to commit sufficient time.
The Co-ordination Committee will work through telephone conferences, hosted by the Canadian Foodgrains Bank, and through meetings mainly held back to back with events already involving the participation of many members and probably one specially organised meeting per year.
The full campaign membership will usually have one meeting a year in addition to one or more meetings in the co-ordination committee. The time and place for the next meeting in the campaign will be decided by the co-ordination committee, and will be held in September-November 2004.
The Campaign should have a web site : the Secretariat will explore how to manage it.
3. Name and Logo
Agreed to add the word “food” to the title, which will be : “MORE AND BETTER An international Campaign for Food, Agriculture and Rural Development Aid to eradicate Hunger and Poverty”.
Logo of the Campaign will be the proposal based on a globe with the African continent in the center. Agreement on having different grains in the logo instead of just wheat .
4. The “better” purpose: principles and suggestions
Patrick Mulvany from UK Food Group made a short introduction on the issue, referring to discussions started in the campaign on this in September (Attachment 1: draft for ten principles, September 2003).
Francisco Pascual from IRDF from the Philippines had an introduction about what is aid and good aid for agriculture and rural development. The presentation is attached (Attachment 2).
Several organisations in the campaign are already involved in processes to evaluate aid and to work out principles and guidelines for improving the quality of aid for food, agriculture and rural development. The campaign will encourage such processes and facilitate co-operation and exchanges of information and views. The campaign will work out some common guidelines. The meeting of the campaign in 2004 will have this as a key issue on the agenda. The campaign will also approach and co-operate with international institutions such as FAO, IFAD and WFP to get information, experiences and views from them.
Some input from the discussions in the meeting:
- Better aid
Aid should :
-be targeted towards the most pressing problems such as hunger and poverty
-recognize the overall needs of people
-support not only productivity but policy reforms in the economy of a country
-support the development of farming systems appropriate for the majority of the poor farmers
-recognize environmental sustainability and social acceptability of the programs of development aid
-cost less to recipient countries
- have no conditionality
The discussion highlighted the following:
A good development aid should:
- focus on developing grassroot level institutions and supporting community-based organisations as well as regional and national organsations
- focus on building the capacity of local people so that they can carry out their own models of development and/or monitor development aid at local level
- have a clear development paradigm that pushes for a sustainable development and farmer-based development models
- give importance to consultations with and direct participation of communities in defining the direction and the content of this development aid, and that this participatory process entails some openness on the part of government to allow engagement and dialogue with communities and farmers and local stakeholders and civil society organizations
- build on local knowledge and link it up with scientific institutions
- support and promote micro-credit programs at local level.
Possible approaches include:
- campaigning against aid that destroys or undermines rural development
-involvement of local communities in the decision making process at national levels,
- influencing national policies to adopt a new development paradigm
-improved governance that includes local people
-collection of stories, good examples on ‘good aid’ for widespread dissemination.
- The trends in support for agriculture and rural development
Introductions on the issue from : Eva Clayton , Special Adviser to the Director General in FAO; Sergio Marelli, President of the Association of Italian NGOs and Director General of FOCSIV.
The introductions from Mr. MacMillen, Director Technical Cooperation Divisionof FAO, Mr. Cooke, Director TechnicalDivision ofIFAD and Mr. Strippoli, Director External Relations Division ofWFPare attached (Attachment 3).
6.Information material
A draft for a brochure has been circulated in the campaign since September and was discussed in the meeting. Aksel Naerstad was given the mandate to ultimate the brochure on the base of the discussions and comments sent out on the mailing list after the meeting. If there are important political disagreements on the draft sent out after the meeting (Attachment 4), the co-ordination committee will decide the wording of the brochure.
The Campaign will have an 'invitation letter' available to give immediate information to people who want or are invited to join. A draft was discussed at the meeting. Aksel Naerstad will send out a new draft on the background of the discussions (Attachment 5). He has the mandate to finalise the invitation letter after receiving comments from participants.
The campaign will have a web-site. The secretariat will work on that.
7. Financial support and Secretariat
- Financial support
Suggestions for where to get funding are:
- The three UN Food Agencies
- Maybe the IAAH
- Governments such as Norway's, Canada's and others
- Organizations
- Private foundations
- World Bank, Regional development banks
What do we need to get funding:
a platform, some kind of publications, our activities (presence to international events and conferences) to be mentioned to donors. Probably the link to IAAH would give us some credibility, e.g. a letter of recognition by Eva Clayton.
The campaign has roughly 9000 Euro left from support from FAO and IFAD, and roughly 12 000 Euro from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for travel and accommodation for participants from developing countries for a meeting in 2004 and about the same amount for a workshop organized by Via Campesina. . The budget proposal for next year amounts to an initial minimum budget of 65.000 Euro to a more detailed one of 92.000 Euro. (Attachment 6)
- Secretariat
Focsiv offered to maintain the Secretariat for the time being.
It would be useful to have a short description or one page 'term of reference' for the Coordinator.
It is necessary to establish some Procedures for travel/accomodation's request by members.
8. Plans for next year
Some of the plans are covered on other issues on the agenda.
The Campaign should participate in international event such as:
- the FAO Regional Conferences
- The meeting of the FAO Committee on the World Food Security (CFS) in September
- Next World Food Day October 15.
- UNCTAD Conference in Brazil July 12-18.
- G8 meetings
The World Social Forum is an opportunity for the Campaign to be present and bring its message (the logo and the leaflet should be available at that time). Via Campesina will have a workshop in Mumbai for farmers which will include the issue of what is good aid and support for agriculture and rural development.
Members of the campaign going to WSF should try to meet for informal talks. The Asian Network for Food Sovereignty will have different seminars during 2004 which could be used to promote the campaign.
Then there will be the Regional Conferences of FAO March - May 2004. This should be another occasion.
The MORE AND BETTER campaign will have a meeting in September-November 2004. The co-ordination committee will decide time and place after sending out a proposal and responds on it from other participants in the campaign.
The co-ordination committee will have a meeting before the annual meeting if there is funding for it.
More plans will be worked out via e-mail and by the co-ordinating committee.
Attachments:
- “10 Possible Campaign Principles”, by Patrick Mulvany, ITDG
- “Issues on Enhancing the Quality of Aid for Food, Agriculture and Rural Development”, by Francisco Pascual, IRDF
- Introductions by representatives from FAO, IFAD and WFP.
- Draft of leaflet
- Draft of invitation letter
- Budget for 2004
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