Two Grassroots International partners from Brazil, the Landless Workers Movement (MST) and the Movement of Small Farmers (MPA) were both at the Nyeleni International Food Sovereignty Forum in Mali this week. They spoke to Radio Mundo Real about the importance of food sovereignty and the need to continue to advocate for it and agrarian reform on a continuing basis with the Brazilian government, as part of the strategy of achieving food sovereignty.
Grassroots International friend Anna Lappé is currently in Mali for the Nyeleni Food Sovereignty Forum along with Grassroots' Resource Rights Specialist Corrina Steward and over 500 other delegates from around the world. She just sent us a blog on the Forum that she posted on the Guerilla News Network Post, which was founded by her broher Anthony.
Since Lula's election as president, some progressives (at least outside of Brazil) have been somewhat complacent about "our guy" in Brasilia.
The recent news about rising corn prices in Mexico (and here in the US), in part a result of growing demand for "clean biofuels" such as ethanol, warrants focusing on a variety of act
Peter Rosset, a member of Grassroots International's Resource Rights Advisory Group based at CECCAM (Center for the Study of Rural Change in Mexico) in Mexico City, recently wrote this l
Every year, as Thanksgiving comes round the corner, I think about food—the history of food and the history of the peoples who grow and eat it.
"Water and other natural resources are at the center of conflicts worldwide, in large part due to their unequal distribution. These conflicts are both paradigmatic and traditional, involving a fundamental difference over whether water is a human right or a marketable commodity. For rural small producers from the Middle East to Latin America, there is no question that access to and control of water is essential to their very survival. The source of the water challenges these producers face vary across the globe, from occupying powers to a state of war, and from government-sponsored, top-down development models to corporate interests that promote private gain over public good. When viewed through the lens of resource rights, globalization is shrinking the global commons through the concentration and privatization of natural resources. Social change movements of small producers are at the forefront of envisioning and realizing more sustainable alternatives."
An article on the connections between water, resource rights and social justice in a special issue on Water and Social Justice for Progressive Planning, the magazine of the
The Bush Administration and much of the mainstream media in the US have portrayed the current violence in the Middle East as Israeli reaction to the capture of its soldiers (in Gaza by Hamas and in Lebanon by Hezbollah). A number of leading progressive voices from around the world present a different perspective that reminds of what started this recent sequence in the ongoing violence now buried under the headlines of Lebanon.
In this piece written July 26, 2006, Dr. Shiva points out that while there is certainly cause to celebrate the collapse of the WTO's Doha Round, the underlying logic of free (as opposed to fair) trade and its harmful effects on the world's impoverished majority are alive and well in bilateral agreements between the U.S. and individual Third World countries; and that multinational corporations in fact don't need the WTO and multilateral free trade agreements and rules as they can get much of what they want in bilateral deals. Citing the case of the US-India Knowledge Initiative in Agriculture, Dr. Shiva shows that even formal bilateral trade agreements are in and of themselves not required and that ostensibly scientific cooperation and knowledge sharing frameworks can advance the agenda of multinational corporations and their political backers.
The WTO "compromise" being pushed by the industrialized countries and the WTO director would have dealt a double-whammy to Third World countries --devastating their agricultural and industrial sectors in one blow. As Carin Smaller of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy notes, "The current system hasn't worked for U.S. farmers or West African farmers. It has failed workers in Europe as well as those in Bangladesh."
La Via Campesina (a Grassroots International partner and grantee) jointly released a press statement with major Via allies, including Marche mondiale des femmes, Friends of the Earth, and World Forum of Fish Harvesters and Fishworkers after the World Trade Organization (WTO) announced the collapse of the Doha Round of global trade talks.
Migrante eschucha!
El FAT esta en su lucha!
(Migrants, hear us!
The FAT is with you in your struggle!)
A recent World Bank report observed that the Palestinian economy was in the throes of "one of the deepest recessions in modern history exceeding the scale of economic losses suffered by the U.S. in the Great Depression, or Argentina during the recent financial collapse." More than one out of three available labor force participants are unemployed. And to keep pace with the expanding available labor force, 30,000 new jobs would have to be created each year. The highest percentage of unemployment is concentrated among youth: 37.2% among 15-19 year olds and 36.3% among 20-24 year olds.
"Dead people live here" said my niece Anisha matter of factly, as only a 6-7 year old would, while we drove by a cemetery near her home in Erie, Pennsylvania some years ago.
And on my first full day in Jerusalem Anisha's voice rang in my ears. That innocent remark carries a lot more weight here in Jerusalem.
Democracy is a precursor for a democratic foreign policy. This was an underlying message of a keynote presentation at a recent conference that I attended on U.S. foreign policy framed around a number of interesting questions, including, "What role, if any, might there be for the democratic process in formulating U.S. foreign policy?" and "How does U.S. foreign policy impact U.S. democracy?"
By Dan Connell
Eight months ago, Grassroots International ended its longest-running overseas aid program–that in Eritrea. The decision was an agonizing but necessary one. The story of how Grassroots arrived at this point closely tracks my own evolution as a writer and an activist for social justice.
Thirty years ago I set out with a back pack, a notebook, a few pens and a small wad of cash and travelers checks to explore Africa. Several months into it and spurred on by reports of a fierce but largely unreported counterinsurgency, I hitched into Eritrea to witness the massacre of dozens of civilians by Ethiopia's U.S.-supported military regime.
Supporters of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) narrowly won a 217 to 215 victory in the House this week. While this was a loss, the narrow margin is a sure sign of hope (see the Institute for Policy Studies' John Cavanagh's piece that talks about the backroom pork-barreling involved).
As the G-8 countries meet in Edinburgh, Scotland, to discuss debt cancellation for Africa there is much buzz in the media and elsewhere on transparency and reform.
Imagine that your family, descended from freed slaves, has been working the same plot of land where your ancestors once toiled in bondage for generations. Now imagine waking up one morning to find that your government has sold the land out from under you to foreign speculators. What would you do?
When it happened to Dona Maria de Jesus, or Dona DeJe as she is affectionately called, she knew she had only one choice: fight for her community and for her rights.
Brazilian Bishop on Hunger Strike In Defense of Sao Francisco River
Tim Wise, former Executive Director of Grassroots International elaborated on this based on Grassroots' principles back in 2005 shortly after the Asian tsunami. Those pointers are just as relevant today. Progressive-minded people who want to contribute to humanitarian aid efforts too often abandon their progressive principles, particularly in crisis situations. Why? They want to help, and they want to do so quickly. And they focus on the service-delivery – food rations, medicines, shelter – rather than the service deliverers.
