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Development banks have no business financing agribusiness

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On the eve of an annual gathering of public development banks in Rome, 280 groups from 70 countries have signed a letter slamming them for bankrolling the expansion of industrial agriculture, environmental destruction and corporate control of the food system. The signatories affirm only fully public and accountable funding mechanisms based on people’s actual needs can achieve real solutions to the global food crisis.

Over 450 Public Development Banks (PDBs) from around the world are gathering in Rome from 19 to 20 October 2021 for a second international summit, dubbed Finance in Common. During the first summit in Paris in 2020, over 80 civil-society organizations published a joint statement demanding that the PDBs stop funding agribusiness companies and projects that take land and natural resources away from local communities. This year, however, PDBs have made agriculture and agribusiness the priority of their second summit. This is of serious concern for the undersigned groups as PDBs have a long track-record of making investments in agriculture that benefit private interests and agribusiness corporations at the expense of farmers, herders, fishers, food workers and Indigenous Peoples, undermining their food sovereignty, ecosystems and human rights.

Our concerns

PDBs are public institutions established by national governments or multilateral agencies to finance government programs and private companies whose activities are said to contribute to the improvement of people’s lives in the places where they operate, particularly in the Global South. Many multilateral development banks, a significant sub-group of PDBs, also provide technical and policy advice to governments to change their laws and policies to attract foreign investment.

As public institutions, PDBs are bound to respect, protect and fulfil human rights and are supposed to be accountable to the public for their actions. Today, development banks collectively spend over US$2 trillion a year financing public and private companies to build roads, power plants, factory farms, agribusiness plantations and more in the name of “development” – an estimated US$1.4 trillion goes into the sole agriculture and food sector. Their financing of private companies, whether through debt or the purchase of shares, is supposed to be done for a profit, but much of their spending is backed and financed by the public – by people’s labor and taxes.

The number of PDBs and the funding they receive is growing.The reach of these banks is also growing as they are increasingly channeling public funds through private equity, “green finance” and other financial schemes to deliver the intended solutions instead of more traditional support to government programs or non-profit projects. Money from a development bank provides a sort of guarantee for companies expanding into so-called high-risk countries or industries. These guarantees enable companies to raise more funds from private lenders or other development banks, often at favorable rates. Development banks thus play a critical role in enabling multinational corporations to expand further into markets and territories around the world – from gold mines in Armenia, to controversial hydroelectric dams in Colombia, to disastrous natural gas projects in Mozambique – in ways they could not do otherwise.

Additionally, many multilateral development banks work to explicitly shape national level law and policy through their technical advice to governments and ranking systems such as the Enabling the Business of Agriculture of the World Bank. The policies they support in key sectors — including health, water, education, energy, food security and agriculture — tend to advance the role of big corporations and elites. And when affected local communities, including Indigenous Peoples and small farmers protest, they are often not heard or face reprisals. For example, in India, the World Bank advised the government to deregulate the agricultural marketing system, and when the government implemented this advice without consulting with farmers and their organisations, it led to massive protests.

Public Development Banks claim that they only invest in “sustainable” and “responsible” companies and that their involvement improves corporate behavior. But these banks have a heavy legacy of investing in companies involved in land grabbing, corruption, violence, environmental destruction and other severe human rights violations, from which they have escaped any meaningful accountability. The increasing reliance of development banks on offshore private equity funds and complex investment webs, including so called financial intermediaries, to channel their investments makes accountability even more evasive and enables a small and powerful financial elite to capture the benefits.

It is alarming that Public Development Banks are now taking on more of a coordinated and central role when it comes to food and agriculture. They are a part of the global financial architecture that is driving dispossession and ecological destruction, much of which is caused by agribusiness. Over the years, their investment in agriculture has almost exclusively gone to companies engaged in monoculture plantations, contract growing schemes, animal factory farms, sales of hybrid and genetically modified seeds and pesticides, and digital agriculture platforms dominated by Big Tech. They have shown zero interest in or capacity to invest in the farm, fisher and forest communities that currently produce the majority of the world’s food. Instead, they are bankrolling land grabbers and corporate agribusinesses and destroying local food systems.

Painful examples

Important examples of the pattern we see Public Development Banks engaging in:

  • The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the European Investment Bank have provided generous financing to the agribusiness companies of some of Ukraine’s richest oligarchs, who control hundreds of thousands of hectares of land.

  • SOCFIN of Luxembourg and SIAT of Belgium, the two largest oil palm and rubber plantation owners in Africa, have received numerous financial loans from development banks, despite their subsidiaries being mired in land grabbing, corruption scandals and human rights violations.

  • Multiple development banks (including Swedfund, BIO, FMO and the DEG) financed the failed sugarcane plantation of Addax Bioenergy in Sierra Leone that has left a trail of devastation for local communities after the company’s exit.

  • The UK’s CDC Group and other European development banks (including BIO, DEG, FMO and Proparco) poured over $150 million into the now bankrupt Feronia Inc’s oil palm plantations in the DR Congo, despite long-standing conflicts with local communities over land and working conditions, allegations of corruption and serious human rights violations against villagers.

  • The United Nations’ Common Fund for Commodities invested in Agilis Partners, a US-owned company, which is involved in the violent eviction of thousands of villagers in Uganda for a large-scale grain farm.

  • Norfund and Finnfund own Green Resources, a Norwegian forestry company planting pine trees in Uganda on land taken from thousands of local farmers, with devastating effects on their livelihoods.

  • The Japan Bank for International Cooperation and the African Development Bank invested in a railway and port infrastructure project to enable Mitsui of Japan and Vale of Brazil to export coal from their mining operations in northern Mozambique. The project, connected to the controversial ProSavana agribusiness project, has led to land grabbing, forced relocations, fatal accidents and the detention and torture of project opponents.

  • The China Development Bank financed the ecologically and socially disastrous Gibe III dam in Ethiopia. Designed for electricity generation and to irrigate large-scale sugar, cotton and palm oil plantations such as the gargantuan Kuraz Sugar Development Project, it has cut off the river flow that the indigenous people of the Lower Omo Valley relied on for flood retreat agriculture.

  • In Nicaragua, FMO and Finnfund financed MLR Forestal, a company managing cocoa and teak plantations, which is controlled by gold mining interests responsible for displacement of Afro-descendant and Indigenous communities and environmental degradation.

  • The International Finance Corporation and the Inter-American Development Bank Invest have recently approved loans to Pronaca, Ecuador’s 4th largest corporation, to expand intensive pig and poultry production despite opposition from international and Ecuadorian groups, including local indigenous communities whose water and lands have been polluted by the company’s expansive operations.

  • The Inter-American Development Bank Invest is considering a new $43 million loan for Marfrig Global Foods, the world’s 2nd largest beef company, under the guise of promoting “sustainable beef.” Numerous reports have found Marfrig’s supply chain directly linked to illegal deforestation in the Amazon and Cerrado and human rights violations. The company has also faced corruption charges. A global campaign is now calling for PDBs to immediately divest from all industrial livestock operations.

We need better mechanisms to build food sovereignty

Governments and multilateral agencies are finally beginning to acknowledge that today’s global food system has failed to address hunger and is a key driver of multiple crises, from pandemics to biodiversity collapse to the climate emergency. But they are doing nothing to challenge the corporations who dominate the industrial food system and its model of production, trade and consumption. To the contrary, they are pushing for more corporate investment, more public private partnerships and more handouts to agribusiness.

This year’s summit of the development banks was deliberately chosen to follow on the heels of the UN Food Systems Summit. It was advertised as a global forum to find solutions to problems afflicting the global food system but was hijacked by corporate interests and became little more than a space for corporate greenwashing and showcasing industrial agriculture. The event was protested and boycotted by social movements and civil society, including through the Global People´s Summit and the Autonomous People´s response to the UN Food Systems Summit, as well as by academics from across the world.

The Finance in Common summit, with its focus on agriculture and agribusiness, will follow the same script. Financiers overseeing our public funds and mandates will gather with elites and corporate representatives to strategize on how to keep the money flowing into a model of food and agriculture that is leading to climate breakdown, increasing poverty and exacerbating all forms of malnutrition. Few if any representatives from the communities affected by the investments of the development banks, people who are on the frontlines trying to produce food for their communities, will be invited in or listened to. PDBs are not interested. They seek to fund agribusinesses, which produce commodities for trade and financial schemes for profits rather than food for nutrition.

Last year, a large coalition of civil-society organizations made a huge effort just to get the development banks to agree to commit to a human rights approach and community-led development. The result was only some limited language in the final declaration, which has not been translated into action.

We do not want any more of our public money, public mandates and public resources to be wasted on agribusiness companies that take land, natural resources and livelihoods away from local communities. Therefore:

We call for an immediate end to the financing of corporate agribusiness operations and speculative investments by public development banks.

We call for the creation of fully public and accountable funding mechanisms that support peoples’ efforts to build food sovereignty, realize the human right to food, protect and restore ecosystems, and address the climate emergency.

We call for the implementation of strong and effective mechanisms that provide communities with access to justice in case of adverse human rights impacts or social and environmental damages caused by PDB investments.

Signatories:

Fundación Plurales – Argentina

Fundación Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (FARN) – Argentina

Foro Ambiental Santiagueño – Argentina

Armenian Women For Health &Healthy Environment NGO /AWHHE/ – Armenia

Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance – Australia

SunGem – Australia

Welthaus Diözese Graz-Seckau – Austria

Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights – Austria

FIAN Austria – Austria

Oil Workers’ Rights Protection Organization Public Union – Azerbaijan

Initiative for Right View – Bangladesh

Right to Food South Asia – Bangladesh

IRV – Bangladesh

Bangladesh Agricultural Farm Labour Federation [BAFLF] – Bangladesh

NGO “Ecohome” – Belarus

Eclosio – Belgium

AEFJN – Belgium

FIAN Belgium – Belgium

Entraide et Fraternité – Belgium

Africa Europe Faith & Justice Network (AEFJN) – Belgium

Coalition for Fair Fisheries Arrangements – Belgium

Eurodad – Belgium

Friends of the Earth Europe – Belgium

Alianza Animalista La Paz – Bolivia

Instituto de Estudos Socioeconômicos (Inesc) – Brazil

Centro Ecologico – Brazil

FAOR Fórum da Amazônia Oriental – Brazil

Articulação Agro é Fogo – Brazil

Campanha Nacional de Combate e Prevenção ao Trabalho Escravo – Comissão Pastoral da Terra/CPT – Brazil

Clínica de Direitos Humanos da Amazônia -PPGD/UFPA – Brazil

Universidade Federal Fluminense IPsi – Brazil

Associação Brasileira de Reforma Agrária – Brazil

Rede Jubileu Sul Brasil – Brazil

Alternativas para pequena agricultura no Tocantins APATO – Brazil

CAPINA Cooperação e Apoio a Projetos de Inspiração Alternativa – Brazil

Marcha Mundial por Justiça Climática / Marcha Mundial do Clima – Brazil

MNCCD – Movimento Nacional Contra Corrupção e pela Democracia – Brazil

Marcha Mundial por Justiça Climática/Marcha Mundial do Clima – Brazil

Support Group for Indigenous Youth – Brazil

Comissão Pastoral da Terra -CPT – Brazil

Equitable Cambodia – Cambodia

Coalition of Cambodian Farmers Community – Cambodia

Struggle to Economize Future Environment (SEFE) – Cameroon

Synaparcam – Cameroon

APDDH -ASSISTANCE – Cameroon

Inter Pares – Canada

Vigilance OGM – Canada

National Farmers Union – Canada

SeedChange – Canada

Place de la Dignité – Canada

Corporación para la Protección y Desarrollo de Territorios Rurales- PRODETER – Colombia

Grupo Semillas – Colombia

Groupe de Recherche et de Plaidoyer sur les Industries Extractives (GRPIE) – Côte d’Ivoire

Réseau des Femmes Braves (REFEB) – Côte d’Ivoire

CLDA – Côte d’Ivoire

Counter Balance – Czech Republic

AfrosRD – Dominican Republic

Conseil Régional des Organisations Non gouvernementales de Développement – DR Congo

Construisons Ensemble le MONDE – DR Congo

Synergie Agir Contre la Faim et le Réchauffement Climatique , SACFRC. – DR Congo

COPACO-PRP – DR Congo

AICED – DR Congo

Réseaux d’informations et d’appui aux ONG en République Démocratique du Congo ( RIAO – RDC) – DR Congo

Latinoamérica Sustentable – Ecuador

Housing and Land Rights Network – Habitat International Coalition – Egypt

Pacific Islands Association of Non-Governmental Organisations (PIANGO) – Fiji

Internationale Situationniste – France

Pouvoir d’Agir – France

Europe solidaire sans frontières (ESSF) – France

Amis de la Terre France – France

Médias Sociaux pour un Autre Monde – France

ReAct Transnational – France

CCFD-Terre Solidaire – France

CADTM France – France

Coordination SUD – France

Движение Зеленных Грузии – Georgia

NGO “GAMARJOBA” – Georgia

StrongGogo – Georgia

FIAN Deutschland – Germany

Rettet den Regenwald – Germany

Angela Jost Translations – Germany

urgewald e.V. – Germany

Abibinsroma Foundation – Ghana

Alliance for Empowering Rural Communities – Ghana

Organización de Mujeres Tierra Viva – Guatemala

Campaña Guatemala sin hambre – Guatemala

PAPDA – Haïti

Centre de Recherche et d’Action pour le Developpement (CRAD) – Haiti

Ambiente, Desarrollo y Capacitación (ADC ) – Honduras

Rashtriya Raithu Seva Samithi – India

All India Union of Forest Working People AIUFWP – India

Centre for Financial Accountability – India

People First – India

Environics Trust – India

ToxicsWatch Alliance – India

Food Sovereignty Alliance – India

Indonesia for Global Justice (IGJ) – Indonesia

kruha – Indonesia

Wahana Lingkungan Hidup Indonesia (WALHI) – Indonesia

JPIC Kalimantan – Indonesia

تانيا جمعه /منظمه شؤون المراه والطفل – Iraq

ICW-CIF – Italy

PEAH – Policies for Equitable Access to Health – Italy

Focsiv Italian federation christian NGOs – Italy

Schola Campesina APS – Italy

Casa Congo- Italy

ReCommon – Italy

Japan International Volunteer Center (JVC) – Japan

Team OKADA – Japan

taneomamorukai – Japan

VoiceForAnimalsJapan – Japan

Keisen University – Japan

000 PAF NPO – Japan

Missionary Society of Saint Columban, Japan – Japan

Migrants around 60 – Japan

Mura-Machi Net (Network between Villages and Towns) – Japan

Japan Family Farmers Movement (Nouminren) – Japan

Pacific Asia Resorce Center(PARC) – Japan

A Quater Acre Farm-Jinendo – Japan

Friends of the Earth Japan – Japan

Alternative People’s Linkage in Asia (APLA) – Japan

Mekong Watch – Japan

Family Farming Platform Japan – Japan

Africa Japan Forum – Japan

ATTAC Kansai – Japan

ATTAC Japan – Japan

Association of Western Japan Agroecology (AWJA) – Japan

Mennovillage Naganuma – Japan

Phenix Center – Jordan

Mazingira Institute – Kenya

Dan Owala – Kenya

Jamaa Resource Initiatives – Kenya

Kenya Debt Abolition Network – Kenya

Haki Nawiri Afrika – Kenya

Euphrates Institute-Liberia – Liberia

Green Advocates International (Liberia) – Liberia

Sustainable Development Institute (SDI) – Liberia

Alliance for Rural Democracy (ARD) – Liberia

Frères des Hommes – Luxembourg

SOS FAIM – Luxembourg

Collectif pour la défense des terres malgaches – TANY – Madagascar

Third World Network – Malaysia

Appui Solidaire pour le Développement de l’Aide au Développement – Mali

Réseau CADTM Afrique – Mali

Lalo – Mexico

Tosepanpajt A.C – Mexico

Maya sin Fronteras – Mexico

Centro de Educación en Apoyo a la Producción y al Medio Ambiente, A.C. – Mexico

Mujeres Libres COLEM AC – México

Grupo de Mujeres de San Cristóbal Las Casas AC – México

Colectivo Educación para la Paaz y los Derechos Humanos A.C. (CEPAZDH) – México

Red Nacional de Promotoras Rurales – México

Dinamismo Juvenil A.C – México

Cultura Ambiental en Expansión AC – México

Observatorio Universitario de Seguridad Alimentaria y Nutricional del Estado de Guanajuato – México

Centro Interdisciplinario de Investigación y Desarrollo Alternativo U Yich Lu’um AC – México

The Hunger Project México – México

Americas Program/Americas.Org – México

Association Talassemtane pour l’Environnement et Développement (ATED) – Morocco

Espace de Solidarité et de Coopération de l’Oriental – Morocco

LVC Maroc – Morocco

EJNA – Morocco

NAFSN – Morocco

Fédération nationale du secteur agricole – Morocco

Association jeunes pour jeunes – Morocco

Plataforma Mocambicana da Mulher e Rapariga Cooperativistas/AMPCM – MOZAMBIQUE – Mozambique

Justica Ambiental – JA! – Mozambique

Community Empowerment and Social Justice Network (CEMSOJ) – Nepal

WILPF NL – Netherlands

Milieudefensie – Netherlands

Platform Aarde Boer Consument – Netherlands

Both ENDS – Netherlands

Foundation for the Conservation of the Earth,FOCONE – Nigeria

Lekeh Development Foundation (LEDEF) – Nigeria

Nigeria Coal Network – Nigeria

Spire – Norway

Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum – Pakistan

Gaza Urban Agriculture Platform (GUPAP) – Palestine

Union of Agricultural Work Committees – Palestine

WomanHealth Philippines – Philippines

Agroecology X – Philippines

SEARICE – Philippines

Alter Trade Foundation for Food Sovereignty, Inc – Philippines

Association pour la défense des droits à l’eau et à l’assainissement – Sénégal

Biotech Services Sénégal – Sénégal

Association Sénégalaise des Amis de la Nature – Sénégal

Alliance Sénégalaise Contre la Faim et la Malnutrition – Sénégal

Association Sénégalaise des Amis de la Nature – Sénégal

Alliance Sénégalaise Contre la Faim et la Malnutrition – Sénégal

Green Scenery – Sierra Leone

Land for Life – Sierra Leone

JendaGbeni Centre for Social Change Communications – Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone Land Alliance – Sierra Leone

African Centre for Biodiversity – South Africa

African Children Empowerment – South Africa

Cooperative and Policy Alternative Centre – South Africa

Fish Hoek Valley Ratepayers and Residents Association – South Africa

Consciously Organic – South Africa

Wana Johnson Learning Centre – South Africa

Aha Properties – South Africa

Sacred Earth & Storm School – South Africa

Earth Magic – South Africa

Oasis – South Africa

Envirosense – South Africa

Greenstuff – South Africa

WoMin African Alliance – South Africa

Seonae Eco Centre – South Africa

Eco Hope – South Africa

Kos en Fynbos – South Africa

Ghostwriter Grant – South Africa

Mariann Coordinating Committee – South Africa

Khanyisa Education and Development Trust – South Africa

LAMOSA – South Africa

Ferndale Food Forest and Worm Farm – South Africa

Mxumbu Youth Agricultural Coop – South Africa

PHA Food & Farming Campaign – South Africa

SOLdePAZ.Pachakuti – Spain

Amigos de la Tierra – Spain

Sindicato Andaluz de Trabajadores/AS – Spain

Salva la Selva – Spain

Loco Matrifoco – Spain

National Fisheries Solidarity(NAFSO) – Sri Lanka

Movement for Land and Agricultural Reform (MONLAR) – Sri Lanka

Agr. Graduates Cooperatives Union – Sudan

FIAN Sweden – Sweden

FIAN Suisse – Switzerland

Bread for all – Switzerland

Foundation for Environmental Management and Campaign Against Poverty – Tanzania

World Animal Protection – Thailand

Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact – Thailand

PERMATIL – Timor-Leste

Afrique Eco 2100 – Togo

AJECC – Togo

ATGF – Tunisia

Forum Tunisien des Droits Economiques et Sociaux – Tunisia

Agora Association – Turkey

Uganda Land Rights Defenders – Uganda

Hopes for youth development Association – Uganda

Uganda Consortium on Corporate Accountability – Uganda

Centre for Citizens Conserving Environment &Management (CECIC) – Uganda

Buliisa Initiative for Rural Development Organisation (BIRUDO)) – Uganda

Twerwaneho Listeners Club – Uganda

Alliance for Food Soverignity in Africa – Uganda

Global Justice Now – UK

Friends of the Earth International – UK

Compassion in World Farming – UK

Environmental Justice Foundation – UK

Fresh Eyes – UK

War on Want – UK

Friends of the Earth US – US

A Growing Culture – US

Center for Political Innovation – US

GMO/Toxin Free USA – US

Friends of the Earth US – US

Thousand Currents – US

Local Futures – US

National Family Farm Coalition – US

Community Alliance for Global Justice/AGRA Watch – US

Bank Information Center – US

Seeding Sovereignty – US

Yemeni Observatory for Human Rights – Yemen

Zambia Alliance for Agroecology and Biodiversity – Zambia

Zambian Governance Foundation for Civil Society – Zambia

Urban Farming Zimbabwe – Zimbabwe

Centre for Alternative Development – Zimbabwe

FACHIG Trust – Zimbabwe

Red Latinoamericana por Justicia Económica y Social – Latindadd – América Latina

European Coordination Via Campesina – Europe

Arab Watch Coalition – Middle East and North Africa

FIAN International – International

International Alliance of Inhabitants – International

Society for International Development – International

ActionAid International – International

International Accountability Project – International

Habitat International Coalition – General Secretariat – International

CIDSE – International

ESCR-Net – International

World Rainforest Movement – International

Transnational Institute – International

GRAIN – International

Original Source: grian.org

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NGO WORK

West and Central African grassroots organisations reaffirm their commitment against tree monocultures and in defence of their ancestral lands and forests

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For almost 10 years, the Informal Alliance against the expansion of Industrial Monocultures in West and Central Africa has had an important role in connecting grassroots organisations and activists and strengthening the resistance against land grabbing and other attacks by oil palm and other plantation companies in the region.

Last November, community activists and grassroots organisations that are part of the Alliance, from 10 countries, gathered at their General Assembly to renew their commitment to the defence of ancestral lands and to keep resisting against neo colonial interests and the corporate takeover of communities’ lands.

See below the full declaration:

Gabon, November 2024

THE MOUILA DECLARATION
of the
Informal Alliance against the expansion o Industrial Monocultures

We, the 60 members gathered at the 6th General Assembly of the Informal Alliance against the expansion of Industrial Monoculture Plantations, in Mouila, Gabon from November 19 to 22, 2024, representing communities and organizations of Gabon, Nigeria, Cameroon, Sierra Leone, Congo Brazaville, Liberia, Ghana, Congo Kinshasa, Ivory Coast and Uganda are deeply committed to the fight against land grabbing, particularly by tree plantation companies. LET US ADOPTE this Declaration which marks our conviction in the vital importance of the recognition and return to ancestral community land ownership in Africa, for the well-being of the first occupants.

WE RECOGNIZE THAT:

  • Ancestral lands are home to communities of people with traditional culture and knowledge of nature;
  • Women play a critical role in the defense of their ancestral lands and forests;
  • Community ancestral land in Africa has intrinsic worth and warrants respect regardless of it usefulness in habitants and humanity as a whole;
  • The natural wealth, rights and freedom to their land is being eroded this day at  a frantic and unprecedented  manner and rate because of delibrate harmful development policies clade in colonial legancy;
  • Ancestral community territories illegally occupied during colonial and post-colonial government regimes as concessions to corporations for business development violate the rights of the people and therefore, constitutes serious crimes against human, an illegality is an illegality regardless of the time they were committed;

WE FURTHER ACKNOWLEADGE THAT:

  • Post-colonial governments have failed in their responsibilities by giving true independence to the communities by prioritizing colonial interests by foreign agents by enacting neo-community laws to dislodged and robbed communities of their ancestral land using various opaque notions of national land and/or government land ownership;
  • The threats caused by the senseless acts of grabbing ancestral land and awarding them as concessions to business has brought untold hardship, violence and irreparable damage such loss of lives and biodiversity, entrenched poverty due loss of livelihoods and community property, early child pregnancy, and gender-based violence, etc.
  • African countries that got independence in the 1960s and 70s, today consider communities as belonging to the State and governments and sit in the comfort of their armchairs in faraway land to grant concessions to corporations without Free, Prior, and Informed Consent of the true of the ancestral landowners.

WE ARE COMMITTED TO:

  • Promote and defend agroecological practices and food sovereignty as a form of resistance;
  • Facilitate the establishment of effective and efficient network of communities, activists and NGOs cooperating at local and international level to understand the strategies and tactics used by corporations to steal communities ancestral land and to develop further strategies and tactics to guide communities to stop land grabbing and recover previous illegal occupied land according to the Alliance objectives;
  • Develop mechanisms that permit all sectors of society, especially the longstanding local populations to nonviolently start the journey to assert their ancestral rights to land fondly referred to by some governments as national land and/or state own land, be partners in planning, establishment of initiative that add value to the ancestral land;
  • Strengthen nonviolent resistance education and provide training that will improve their ability to confront governments and corporations that want to take over their territories.
  • Strengthen education for nonviolent resistance and provide training that will improve their ability to confront governments and corporations that want to take over their territories.
  • Plead for the authorities to provide young people with access to land in rural areas, facilitate their training and support.

RECOGNIZING that action to protect the living riches and beauty of ancestral land depends, on the full commitment of the affected local people, WE PLEDGE OURSELVES to work wholeheartedly to implement the provisions of this Declaration.

EMPHASZING that the recognition of ancestral land is essential to sustaining human society and conserving our planet, WE INVITE THE MEMBERS AND FRIENDS OF THE ALLIANCE to convey this Declaration far and wide with the purpose of ensuring that the conclusions acre incorporated in daily activities.

Signatories:

• Community members from Gabon
• Musiru Divag de Fougamou Gabon
• Institute of sustainable Agriculture, Grand Bassa county, Jogba clan, Liberia
• Women’s Network Against Rural Plantations Injustice (WoNARPI), Sierra Leone
• Alliance Uganda Chapter
• Witness Radio, Uganda
• Nature Cameroon
• Synaparcam, Cameroon
• COPACO, DRC
• RADD, Cameroon
• Struggle to Economize Future Environment (SEFE), Mundemba, Cameroon
• CPPH, Cote d’Ivoire
• Collectif des Ressortissants et Écologistes des Plateaux Bateke, Gabon
• REFEB, Cote d’Ivoire
• YVE Ghana
• JVE Côte d’Ivoire
• Association Gulusenu du village Doubou, Gabon
• Muyissi Environnement, Gabon
• Komolo Agro Farmers Association Kiryandongo, Uganda
• Ndagize julius, East African, Uganda
• LOOK GREEN, CARE FOUNDATION, Nigeria
• Association les Rassembleurs du Village Mboukou, Gabon
• Joegba United Women Empowerment and Development Organization (JUWEDO), Liberia
• COLLECTIF ADIAKE. Cote d’Ivoire
• CNOP, Congo
• Maloa, Sierra Leone
• World Rainforest Movement
• GRAIN

Source: World Rainforest Movement

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NGO WORK

Urgent Call for Conditionalities on New IFC and EBRD Loan to Oyu Tolgoi Mine

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Joint Statement

December 9, 2024

We, the undersigned civil society organizations (CSOs) and representatives of herders from Mongolia, strongly condemn the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in providing a $100 million loan each, to Oyu Tolgoi (OT). This decision blatantly disregards years of unresolved grievances, environmental harm, and the failure of OT to comply with IFC and EBRD’s safeguard standards, as well as widespread rejection from local herders, CSOs, and even the Mongolian government.

Unresolved Harms and Non-Compliance

OT has failed to address critical issues, including its commitments under the 2017 Herders Complaint Resolution Agreements and IFC and EBRD’s social and environmental safeguards. Longstanding issues include:

  1. Failures in completing Resolution Agreements: Herders continue to struggle to sustain their livelihoods and protect the environment, as the agreements resulting from CAO complaints remain incomplete. The Tripartite Council (TPC), tasked with implementing the 2017 Agreements, has failed to ensure meaningful involvement of herders in safeguarding their rights and livelihoods.
  2. Tailings Storage Facility (TSF) Seepage: Despite implementing a Remedial Action Plan (RAP) as required by lenders to address the seepage from tailings cell 1 (TC1), OT has neither adequately mitigated the seepage nor transparently disclosed its full extent. Recent data reveals worsening water quality, with Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) levels rising dramatically downstream.
  3. Pasture and Water Scarcity: The mine’s expansion plans threaten vital grazing lands and water resources. Springs that once supported herders’ livelihoods have dried up, forcing herders to compete for limited resources. Moreover, the Dugat-Khaliv river, a key water source for herders, has been diverted around TC2 in a diversion channel without capacity to convey flood-level flows during rainy periods, leading to significant water loss for downstream herders.
  4. Environmental Failures: OT consistently fails to meet the design goal of 64% tailings solid content, resulting in inevitable seepage from the additional pressure exerted by excess water in the tailings cell. This and other design inefficiencies directly lead to massive water wastage estimated at up to $1.46 million per year.
  5. Inadequate Community Engagement: Herders were not meaningfully consulted about the RAP or OT’s expansion plans, violating IFC and EBRD principles of transparency and participation.

Water Mismanagement and Wastage

OT’s operations exacerbate water scarcity through inefficient tailings management. Water wasted due to tailings solids being below design criteria results in significant financial and environmental costs:

  • From 2013-2017, OT achieved 56% solids (8% below design standard), wasting $1.46 million worth of water annually. From 2018-2024, OT achieved nearly 60% solids (4% below design standard) on average, meaning OT wastes $730,000 annually on replacement water. OT has approximately wasted $12.41 million since 2017 from losing 248.2 million liters of water.
  • Oyu Tolgoi (OT) must attain the highest percentage of solid content as specified by its design criteria, 64%, to effectively prevent water scarcity in the South Gobi Desert and ensure improved water access for herders. While lenders argue that the 60-64% range meets the standard, 2012 ESIA states that “Final concentrate will be thickened to 65% solids” which proves otherwise. The TSF operating consistently below 60% results in excessive water waste, posing severe risks to the fragile desert ecosystem and the livelihoods of herders who rely on limited freshwater resources. Achieving the 64% target is not merely an option but a critical necessity to minimize environmental harm, optimize resource use, and uphold OT’s responsibility to local communities.
  • This inefficiency compounds the structural weakness of tailings dams, necessitating costly redesigns and increasing the risk of catastrophic failure. Concerns Over Project Categorization and Political Risks We are deeply concerned that IFC and EBRD categorized OT’s expansion as a Category B project, despite its significant and irreversible impacts on herders and the environment. This misclassification downplays the scale of the risks, undermining proper oversight. Additionally, the Mongolian government is in a disagreement on additional financing that will add more debt, and the Mongolian Parliament Resolution #103 requires an independent audit of underground mine cost overrun which has not been disclosed. Approving new financing in such a contentious political and social environment poses significant risks to the project’s viability.

Recommendations and Conditionalities

IFC and EBRD must impose strict conditionalities on OT before any disbursements begin and ensure the conditionalities are placed in the lending agreement, including:

  1. Fulfillment of Past Commitments:
    • Include the 2017 Herders Complaint Resolution Agreements (HCRAs) in lenders’ compliance requirements and fully implement them.
    • Amend the RAP to include routine medical assessments for herders and their animals impacted by the contaminated water from the TSF seepage, and update Stakeholder Engagement Plan to involve the wider herder community impacted by the seepage.
    • Disclose all the important data from the attachments and annexes of the RAP.
  2. Water and Tailings Management Improvements:
    • Achieve the 64% as the highest solid content target for tailings as per the original ESIA.
    • Disclose the full extent of TSF seepage impacts, including chemical contamination and health risks.
  3. Protection of Herders’ Livelihoods:
    • Permanently halt land acquisitions that displace herders and prioritize using existing lease areas for future tailings cells.
    • Construct a permanent Dugat-Khaliv diversion channel based on maximum flood probabilities.
  4. Transparency and Meaningful Engagement:
    • Disclose all environmental and social impact assessments (ESIA) for expansion plans, implementation of the ESAP from the initial OT project loan, and OT Green Investment Plan.
    • Take actions to strengthen TPC functions through assessing TPC Charter and the implementation of the HCRAs
    • Ensure meaningful consultation with affected communities on all project aspects. This includes consultations on the expansion plans, environmental and social assessment related documents and strengthening of the Tripartite Council with valid herder representation as the body responsible to address herders’ concerns around the OT project.

The approval of new financing to OT without addressing these critical issues perpetuates harm to herders and the environment while eroding public trust in IFC’s and EBRD’s commitment to sustainable development. We call on IFC and EBRD to uphold their safeguards and suspend agreement signing and financing until OT achieves full compliance and fulfills its obligations to herders and the environment.

(Link to full statement in English and Mongolian)

Contact Information:
Sukhgerel Dugersuren, Oyu Tolgoi Watch, 976-99185828, otwatch@gmail.com
Battsengel Lkhamdoorov, Gobi Soil, 976-88705595, tsengel_5595@yahoo.com
Julio Castor Achmadi, Accountability Counsel, julio@accountabilitycounsel.org
Nina Lesikhina, Bankwatch Network, ninalesikhina@bankwatch.org

Signatories:
Gobi Soil, Mongolia
Oyu Tolgoi Watch, Mongolia
Center for Human Rights and Development, Mongolia
AFE, Mongolia
APPDO, Mongolia
CA NGO, Mongolia
GFS, Mongolia
MFSW, Mongolia
RwB Mongolia
SR NGO, Mongolia
SWA, Mongolia
SWB NGO, Mongolia
Accountability Counsel
CEE Bankwatch Network, Regional
Bank Climate Advocates, USA
Bank Information Center, USA
Both ENDS, the Netherlands
Center for Community Mobilization and Support, Armenia
Centre for Research and Advocacy, Manipur, India
Earth Thrive, UK/Serbia
Friends with Environment in Development (FED), Uganda
GAIA, Regional
Gender Action, USA
Green Advocates
Initiative for Right View (IRV), Bangladesh
International Accountability Project
INWOLAG
Kazakhstan International bureau for human rights, Kazakhstan
London Mining Network
LSD, Senegal
NGO Forum on ADB, Regional
Peace Point Development Foundation-PDF, Nigeria
Recourse
Samata & mm&P, India
Sinergia Animal, Brazil
Urgewald, Germany
Witness Radio, Uganda.

Source: Accountability Counsel.

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NGO WORK

Op-Ed | A Missing Investment Strategy: Climate Resilience Hides in Local Food Markets

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Over the last several years, agriculture has stormed onto the climate agenda. And it’s about time. Policymakers, donors, and investors are seeing the wisdom of investing in soil restoration, agroecology, agroforestry, and biodiversity, among other regenerative actions. And yet, what we have learned from our African colleagues is that without simultaneously investing in healthy local markets, these investments in sustainable production are likely to fall short.

Local markets are climate resilient. Not only are these markets a good fit for smallholder farmers who practice agroecology, but they are also more equitable and accessible for women and youth. Strengthening local economic markets and smallholders’ access to them creates a mutually generative cycle of food and ecological resilience—essential to strong local incomes and livelihoods. Remember that family farms continue to feed 70 percent of the world’s population. Specialty crop export and global food trade are still only a minor part of the world’s food story.

Local markets have two distinct advantages in accelerating climate solutions; one is their proximity to consumers, decreasing the miles that food has to travel to get to market, a net savings; two is that increasing agroecological production will enhance soil fertility, capturing carbon, and decrease the use of carbon intensive inputs such as artificial fertilizers and chemical inputs. When considering the amount of food and land under climate resilient food production, the carbon reduction is significant.

Over the past five years, the Agroecology Fund, through a grants program and learning community, has been gleaning insights from African networks and farmers’ organizations about the role of territorial markets to amplify agroecology. With the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) and over a dozen farmers’ organizations, we have seen how smallholder farmers are building local economies that strengthen equitable relationships and climate resilience. Some of the key lessons we learned include:

Local consumers want local, healthy produce. There is a strong market demand for local products from agroecological farms and producers, including green leafy vegetables, fruits, grains, small livestock, and native seeds. Local manufacturing of bio-inputs including fertilizers, bio- pesticides, and inoculants is booming. These markets are large and important to local producers. Strong markets for agroecology mean that farmers are incentivized to practice climate resilient agriculture. An unpublished study of cooperatives and entrepreneurs in Senegal and Mali by Groundswell International noted that local demand for healthy foods is significant and growing. Part of a larger consumer movement led by farmers and consumers, the My Food is African campaign launched by the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa has spread across the continent of Africa in national campaigns for healthy, local, and culturally relevant foods to be produced, celebrated and eaten regularly. Regional and national African leaders have taken up the cause by praising local dishes and demonstrating national pride in local foods as they recognize the costs associated with subsidizing imported staples.

Women farmers have the most to gain from local markets. African women and youth have the most to gain from investment in local markets and local entrepreneurship. Examples abound of growing healthy businesses and value-added production that rely upon women’s agricultural knowledge and practices. Climate resilience requires broad participation from the most vulnerable farmers who are rural women dependent on natural resources for their well-being. In Senegal, a cooperative of women called We Are the Solution has created a fast selling brand of bouillon mix, Sum Pak, made from locally available ingredients without chemicals or preservatives. Chefs and home cooks praise the mix which echoes village flavors and offers consumers low and no sodium lines capitalizing on doctors’ orders.

Finance can be inclusive and accessible. The missing middle is a myth. Smallholder agroecological farmers are not being supported at any level of finance. Many policymakers write convincingly about the missing middle in agribusiness. They assume that microfinance is addressing smallholder farmers’ needs and that larger investors are picking up opportunities over US$100,000. This is not true, less than 15 percent of smallholders practicing any kind of farming are accessing finance below US$100,000. Microfinance is often not being used by smallholder farmers because of high interest rates and repayment durations that do not match agricultural cycles.

Smallholder farmers engaging in agroecology need what regenerative farmers in the U.S. are requesting: low interest, long-term patient capital to engage in both transition to agroecology as well as building up aggregation, processing and marketing of their products. Financing infrastructure such as light farm machinery, storage and refrigeration in the US$2,000 to the US$20,000 range creates new opportunities. This infrastructure enables smallholders to flourish and serve local markets that increase the circulation of local, healthy food. Climate resilience requires thinking about financing the transition in different ways from traditional finance—which has exacerbated inequalities. In Uganda, the purchase of a grinding machine by Eastern and Southern Africa Small-scale Farmer Forum, Uganda (ESAFF) to produce high quality peanut butter enabled a woman’s cooperative to increase the value of their peanut crop 2.7 times. In Cameroon, Service d’Appui aux Initiatives Locales de Développement (SAILD), completed a market analysis that demonstrated the viability of replacing imported wheat flour with local tuber flours grown agroecologically. Indigenous local foods are the present and the future but require financing to play their critical role in food systems.

Local markets are diverse and flourishing. Farmers’ organizations are working alongside cooperatives, associations, entrepreneurs and local governments to develop multiple markets and channels for smallholders’ produce. This includes providing food to territorial markets as well as developing specialized markets, creating on-line digital markets through websites and apps, creating opportunities for bulk purchases and exploring regional markets. Innovative initiatives that connect communities in direct purchasing agreements between producers and purchasers that began during COVID are continuing with great success.

The Kenyan Peasants League worked to pair peri-urban communities of 100 families with direct purchases from smallholder farmers in villages to make regular purchases of food, small livestock and farm inputs directly. Cost savings from shared transportation and the absence of regional market costs enabled many groups to participate. Government procurement programs and interregional trade among African countries remain relatively under-developed strategies with great promise.

Farmers’ organizations are essential. Incubator programs reach small cohorts of farmer entrepreneurs, but community-rooted farmers’ organizations can build trust among a network of small enterprises by building associations and cooperatives to strengthen their voice and action. These cooperatives and associations, supported by representative farmer organizations and networks, have traditions and practices of rotating credit funds that are equitable and provide access to appropriate finance. By working with existing women-led farmer cooperatives, Concertation Nationale des Organisations Paysannes au Cameroun (CNOP CAM) has introduced and funded new agroecological businesses. Ongoing relationships and savings and credit programs, often managed by farmers’ organizations, enable women and smallholders to benefit from loans and technical assistance where others would overlook their potential and undervalue their existing assets, an all-too-common experience.

As policymakers and donors consider opportunities to create climate resilience through agroecology and regenerative agriculture, it is important to remember that territorial markets lie at the center of resilient food systems. We overlook investment in the public agencies that manage them, the businesses behind them, and the farmer organizations that advocate for them at our peril.

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Source: foodtank.com

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