CALL to People's Food Sovereignty Forum 2009

Dear Friends,

The Asian Peasant Coalition (APC) supports the initiative of the International Planning Committee (IPC) CALLING for an independent "People's Food Sovereignty Forum 2009" on November 13-17, 2009 in Rome with the theme “Eradicating Hunger and Poverty now! Nothing against us, nothing without us.” This is the forum of people’s organizations, social movements and NGOs parallel to the World Summit on Food Security on November 16-18, 2009 in Rome propsed by the FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf to agree on key actions to tackle global economic crisis by affecting jobs and deepening poverty.

On the other hand, the IPC’s track record speaks for itself. We have successfully organized two previous parallel fora in 1996 and 2002, the only two such global events in the history of the United Nations system in which representatives of people’s organizations from the South were numerically dominant. The success of the 2002 Forum (“dynamic and productive”, according to FAO report) prompted the FAO to initiate an exchange of letters with the IPC in which FAO recognized IPC as its “principle civil society interlocutor” on questions relevant to WFS follow-up. In this letter FAO committed itself to recognizing IPC autonomy and self-organisation, principles which were reiterated by the CFS at its 34th Session in 2008 when it approved the terms set forth in CFS 2008/5.

Please visit URL: http://www.foodsovereignty.org/public/new_attached/75_CALL%20TO%20THE%20... for details on Peoples' Food Sovereignty Forum 2009.

The APC Secretariat