Connect with us

MEDIA FOR CHANGE NETWORK

Family Farming organizations request to accelerate the efforts to implement the decade of family farming

Published

5 years ago

on

In the framework of the Farmers’ Forum, family farming organizations called for IFAD’s strong involvement in the United Nations Decade of Family Farming.

Rome, 14 February 2020 – Family farming organizations from around the world met at the Farmers’ Forum (FAFO 2020) organized by IFAD from 6 to 11 February in Rome. It was a space that was, without a doubt, a very appropriate opportunity to demonstrate the commitment of hundreds of family farming organizations to implement the United Nations Decade of Family Farming 2019-2028 (UNDFF), and to ask IFAD to continue strongly supporting this process of strengthening family farmers.

In fact, the final Declaration of the Farmers’ Forum, presented to IFAD’s Governing Council, includes many of the proposals made by the family farming organizations that participated in the event, among them those based on the implementation of the UNDFF.

In this sense, the final document requests IFAD to provide its financial and technical support for the establishment of National Committees of Family Farming (NCFF), led by family farming organizations.

It also recommends that IFAD promote multi-stakeholder processes for the implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of the UNDFF and work with governments to ensure that national and regional policies on family farming and rural development are consistent with the guidelines and principles derived from the Decade.

It should be noted that the Global Action Plan of the Decade establishes, by 2024, the goal of 7 subregional Action Plans, 5 regional and 100 National Action Plans by 2024, with measures, policies, and commitments in favour of family farming, developed by governments in dialogue with family farming organizations and/or National Committees for Family Farming. It is therefore very important to recognize, strengthen and support the National Committees for Family Farming (led mainly by farmers organizations), as well as other existing spaces for policy dialogue. These are key to the successful implementation of the UNDFF and the establishment of comprehensive and coherent policies, investments and institutional frameworks in the different territories.

The FAFO recommendations document, which was shared with IFAD’s Governing Council and is available here, also contains important recommendations based on key issues such as rural youth, gender, and leadership of women’s organizations, climate change, and the United Nations Decade of Family Farming.

SUCCESSFUL SIDE EVENT ON THE UNDFF

As a final touch to the Farmers’ Forum, a side event was held on 11 February, coordinated by COPROFAM and the World Rural Forum (WRF), dedicated to the United Nations Decade of Family Farming, with the aim of presenting the challenges, proposals, and initiatives of the organizations to implement the Global Action Plan of the UNDFF and make recommendations that can be included in the IFAD’s Work Plan.

It was an event that brought together many family farming organizations, National Committees of Family Farming and representatives from FAO and IFAD.

It highlighted the many processes already underway to implement the Decade at the national, regional and global levels and the commitment that various actors, such as IFAD, FAO, and ILC, have shown. But it was also pointed out that for the Decade to meet its ambitious goals by generating a positive, large-scale impact on the lives of millions of family farmers, equally ambitious financial resources are necessary.

The Decade must generate new commitments from governments in terms of public policies for family farming.

It is also essential to increase communication efforts and to broaden the mobilization of the various actors at the country level. The involvement of the national offices of FAO and IFAD in facilitating and supporting the ongoing processes of creating national and regional Action Plans for the Decade, supporting National Committees of Family Farming, and incorporating the Decade into their Country Strategic Opportunities Programme (COSOP) and Country Programming Framework, respectively, was widely requested.

More information:

Source: Family Farming Campaign

Related posts:

PROMOTING RESEARCH WITH, FOR AND BY FAMILY FARMERS IN THE FRAMEWORK OF GFAR (GLOBAL FORUM ON AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH AND INNOVATION). United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs10+) have been released in Accra, Ghana. Advocates meet in Accra to assess the performance of the 10 year United Nations Guiding Principles (UNGPs 10+) on business and human rights on the African continent. Uganda receives fertiliser for maize, rice farming Operations of civil society organizations will continue to be stifled until government understands their work – New Book.
Related Topics:
Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

MEDIA FOR CHANGE NETWORK

Appellate Division of the East African Court of Justice (EACJ) rejects the request to dismiss the EACOP appeal case.

Published

1 day ago

on

November 18, 2024

By

By Witness Radio team.

The Appellate Division of the East African Court of Justice (EACJ) has rejected a request by the Tanzanian government to dismiss an appeal filed by four East African civil society organizations (CSOs) seeking compliance with the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) with regional and international human rights standards.

Tanzania’s Deputy Solicitor General, Mr. Mark Mulwambo, requested the judges dismiss the Appeal, arguing that the record of proceedings from the hearings held at the First Instance Division was missing. The record of proceedings includes the CSOs and respondents’ submissions. He added that, without it, the judges at the Appellate Division could not determine whether the First Instance Court erred in the ruling that they made.

However, the court could not grant his request. Instead, it ordered the four CSOs that filed the Appeal to file supplementary information so that the judges could hear the case.

The Appeal will be heard by a panel of judges from the Appellate Division of the EACJ, including Justice Nestor Kayobera, the division’s president; Justice Anita Mugeni, the Vice President; Justice Kathurima M’Inot; Justice Cheboriona Barishaki; and Justice Omar Othman Makungu. These judges, with their expertise in regional and international law, will review the Appeal and make a final decision.

The Appeal was filed by four CSOs, including the Africa Institute for Energy Governance (AFIEGO) from Uganda, the Centre for Food and Adequate Living Rights (CEFROHT) from Uganda, the Natural Justice (NJ) from Kenya, and the Centre for Strategic Litigation (CSL) from Tanzania, in December 2023. This was in response to the dismissal of their case, which sought compliance with the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) with regional and international human rights standards, by judges at the First Instance Division of the EACJ in November 2023.

During the dismissal, the court ruled that the applicants filed the petition out of time, stating that the petitioners should have filed the petition as early as 2017 instead of 2020. The court also ruled that it did not have jurisdiction to hear the case, meaning it did not have the legal authority to decide on this matter. These decisions were based on legal precedents and the specific circumstances of the case.

The CSOs were ordered to file the record of proceedings by Justice Nestor Kayobera by November 29, 2024.

The court session was attended by EACOP-affected communities from both Uganda and Tanzania. Among them was Mr. Gozanga Kyakulubya, an affected person from Kyotera District in Southern Uganda, who traveled to Arusha to participate in the hearing. His personal story underscores the profound impact of the EACOP on the lives of these communities.

He shared his grievance, stating, “I came to the court because I have a lot of pain. My land was taken for the EACOP, and before I was paid, it was fenced off. The government of Uganda also sued me because I rejected the low compensation offered by EACOP. We need at least one court to be fair to EACOP host communities, and we hope the East African Court of Justice will be that court.”

The EACOP has been designed, constructed, financed, and operated through a dedicated Pipeline Company with the same name. The shareholders in EACOP are affiliates of the three upstream joint venture partners: the Uganda National Oil Company (8%), TotalEnergies E&P Uganda (62%), and CNOOC Uganda Ltd (15%), together with the Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (15%).

The 1,443km pipeline will eventually transport Uganda’s crude oil from Kabaale—Hoima to the Chongoleani peninsula near Tanga Port in Tanzania.

Climate activists and civil society organizations, however, continue to oppose the project, claiming that it will harm several fragile and protected habitats irreversibly and violate key agreements and treaties.

The potential environmental damage is a cause for concern among these groups.

Related posts:

Appellate Division of the East African Court of Justice (EACJ) to hear an Appeal filed by CSOs which seeks to reinstate a petition against the construction of the EACOP project tomorrow. EACJ’s Appellate Court will hear an appeal on the dismissed Case against EACOP development. The Appellate East African Court of Justice sets timelines for hearing an appeal against the construction of the EACOP. East African Court of Justice is to decide whether it has jurisdiction to try the EACOP case filed by Four East African NGOs today. The East Africa regional court dismisses a case challenging the construction of the EACOP project.
Continue Reading

MEDIA FOR CHANGE NETWORK

Big oil firms knew of dire effects of fossil fuels as early as 1950s, memos show

Published

1 day ago

on

November 18, 2024

By

Newly unearthed documents contain warning from head of Air Pollution Foundation, founded in 1953 by oil interests.

Major oil companies, including Shell and precursors to energy giants Chevron, ExxonMobil and BP, were alerted about the planet-warming effects of fossil fuels as early as 1954, newly unearthed documents show.

The warning, from the head of an industry-created group known as the Air Pollution Foundation, was revealed by Climate Investigations Center and published Tuesday by the climate website DeSmog. It represents what may be the earliest instance of big oil being informed of the potentially dire consequences of its products.

“Every time there’s a push for climate action, [we see] fossil fuel companies downplay and deny the harms of burning fossil fuels,” said Rebecca John, a researcher at the Climate Investigations Center who uncovered the historic memos. “Now we have evidence they were doing this way back in the 50s during these really early attempts to crack down on sources of pollution.”

The Air Pollution Foundation was founded in 1953 by oil interests in response to public outcry over smog that was blanketing Los Angeles county.

Researchers had identified hydrocarbon pollution from fossil fuel sources such as cars and refineries as a primary culprit and Los Angeles officials had begun to proposal pollution controls.

The Air Pollution Foundation, which was primarily funded by the lobbying organization Western States Petroleum Association, publicly claimed to want to help solve the smog crisis, but was set up in large part to counter efforts at regulation, the new memos indicate.

It’s a commonly used tactic today, said Geoffrey Supran, an expert in climate disinformation at the University of Miami.

Fire emanating from a factory chimney
A gas flare from the Shell Chemical LP petroleum refinery burns against the sky in Louisiana. Photograph: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

“The Air Pollution Foundation appears to be one of the earliest and most brazen efforts by the oil industry to prop up a … front group to exaggerate scientific uncertainty to defend business as usual,” Supran said. “It helped lay the strategic and organizational groundwork for big oil’s decades of climate denial and delay.”

Then called the Western Oil and Gas Association, the lobbying group provided $1.3m to the group in the 1950s – the equivalent of $14m today – to the Air Pollution Foundation. That funding came from member companies including Shell and firms later bought by or merged with ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, Sunoco and ConocoPhillips, as well as southern California utility SoCalGas.

The Air Pollution Foundation recruited the respected chemical engineer Lauren B Hitchcock to serve as its president. And in 1954, the organization – which until then was arguing that households incinerating waste in backyards was to blame – asked Caltech to submit a proposal to determine the main source of smog.

In November 1954, Caltech submitted its proposal, which included crucial warnings about the coal, oil, and gas and said that “a changing concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere with reference to climate” may “ultimately prove of considerable significance to civilization”, a memo previously uncovered by John shows. The newly uncovered documents show the Air Pollution Foundation shared the warning with the Western Oil and Gas Association’s members in March 1955.

In the mid-1950s, climate researchers were beginning to understand the planet-heating impact of fossil fuels, and to discuss their emergent research in the media. But the newly uncovered Air Pollution Foundation memo represents the earliest known cautionary message to the oil industry about the greenhouse effect.

The Air Pollution Foundation’s board of trustees, including representatives from SoCalGas and Union Oil, which was later acquired by Chevron, approved funding for the Caltech project. In the following months, foundation president Hitchcock advocated for pollution controls on oil refineries and then testified in favor of state-funded pollution research in the California Senate.

Hitchcock was reprimanded by industry leaders for these efforts. In an April 1955 meeting, the Western Oil and Gas Association told him he was drawing too much “attention” to refinery pollution and conducting “too broad a program” of research. The Air Pollution Foundation was meant to be “protective” of the industry and should publish “findings which would be accepted as unbiased”, meeting minutes uncovered by John show.

After this meeting, the foundation made no further reference to the potential climate impact of fossil fuels, publications reviewed by DeSmog suggest.

“The fossil fuel industry is often seen as having followed in the footsteps of the tobacco industry’s playbook for denying science and blocking regulation,” said Supran. “But these documents suggest that big oil has been running public affairs campaigns to downplay the dangers of its products just as long as big tobacco, starting with air pollution in the early-to-mid-1950s.”

In the following months, many of the foundation’s research projects were scaled back or designed to be conducted in direct partnerships with lobbying groups. Hitchcock resigned as president in 1956.

Last year, the largest county in Oregon sued the Western States Petroleum Association for allegedly sowing doubt about the climate crisis despite longstanding knowledge of it.

DeSmog and the Climate Investigations Center previously found that the Air Pollution Foundation underwrote the earliest studies on CO2 conducted in 1955 and 1956 by renowned climate scientist Charles David Keeling, paving the way for his groundbreaking “Keeling Curve,” which charts how fossil fuels cause an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Other earlier investigations have found that major fossil companies spent decades conducting their own research into the consequences of burning coal, oil and gas. One 2023 study found that Exxon scientists made “breathtakingly” accurate predictions of global heating in the 1970s and 1980s, only to then spend decades sowing doubt about climate science.

The newly unearthed documents come from the Caltech archives, the US National Archives, the University of California at San Diego, the State University of New York Buffalo archives and Los Angeles newspapers from the 1950s.

The Western States Petroleum Association and the American Petroleum Institute, the top US fossil fuels lobby group, did not respond to requests for comment.

Origin Source: The Guardian

Related posts:

Banks have given almost $7tn to fossil fuel firms since Paris deal, report reveals Statement: The Energy Sector Strategy 2024–2028 Must Mark the End of the EBRD’s Support to Fossil Fuels Insurance firms should shun the East African Crude Oil Pipeline Well connected: The resistance against the fossil industry in East Africa. Fossil fuel opponents lobby Africans for support
Continue Reading

MEDIA FOR CHANGE NETWORK

EACJ’s Appellate Court will hear an appeal on the dismissed Case against EACOP development.

Published

4 days ago

on

November 15, 2024

By

By Witness Radio team.

The appeal against the dismissal of a lower court case, filed by four East African civil societies seeking compliance with the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) with regional and international human rights standards, is scheduled to be heard today, November 15, 2024, by the Appellate Court of the East Africa Court of Justice. The Appellate Court is the higher court that reviews decisions made by lower courts, and in this Case, it will review the decision of the EACJ’s First Instance Division that dismissed the Case.

The appeal case was filed against the Attorney Generals of Uganda and Tanzania and the East African Community Secretary General (EAC).

The appeal is based on case Reference No. 39 of 2020, which was filed in November 2020 by the Center for Food and Adequate Living Rights (CEFROHT), Natural Justice (NJ), Africa Institute for Energy Governance (AFIEGO), and Center for Strategic Litigation (CSL) from Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda. The Case asked the EACJ lower court to issue temporary and permanent injunctions to halt the development of the EACOP.

The organizations claimed that the EACOP violates key East African and international treaties and laws, including the East African Community (EAC) Treaty, Protocol for Sustainable Development of the Lake Victoria basin, Convention on Biological Diversity, and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Others include the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights and the African Convention on Conservation of Natural Resources.

The EACOP has been designed, constructed, financed, and operated through a dedicated Pipeline Company with the same name. The shareholders in EACOP are affiliates of the three upstream joint venture partners: the Uganda National Oil Company (8%), TotalEnergies E&P Uganda (62%), and CNOOC Uganda Ltd (15%), together with the Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (15%).

The 1,443km pipeline will eventually transport Uganda’s crude oil from Kabaale—Hoima to the Chongoleani peninsula near Tanga Port in Tanzania.

Climate activists and civil society organizations, however, have opposed the project, claiming that it will harm several fragile and protected habitats irreversibly and violate key agreements and treaties. Furthermore, the project has been linked to several human rights violations, such as land grabs and the imprisonment of project critics.

On November 29, 2023, the EACJ dismissed the Case. The court ruled that the applicants filed the petition out of time, stating that the petitioners should have filed the petition as early as 2017 instead of 2020. The court also ruled that it did not have jurisdiction to hear the Case, meaning it did not have the legal authority to make a decision on this particular matter. These rulings were based on the court’s interpretation of the EAC Treaty and procedural law.

Undeterred by the dismissal of the Case, on December 13, 2023, the four CSOs demonstrated their unwavering commitment to justice by filing an appeal at the East African Court of Justice’s (EACJ) Appellate Division.

Their appeal is meticulously based on the grounds that the court case was timely, given that the applicants (CSOs) became aware of the signing of the Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) on October 26, 2020, and filed the Case on November 6, 2020, just ten days after gaining knowledge of the IGA.

They argue that the First Instance Division erred in interpreting Article 30 of the EAC Treaty and misapplied procedural law. The CSOs, with their legal expertise, assert that article 30 of the EAC Treaty sets a two-month limitation period for filing cases at the EACJ, starting from the enactment, publication, directive, decision, or action being contested, or, in its absence, from the day it came to the knowledge of the complainant.

The appellants also contend that the court should have recognized that their statement of reference was based on 12 grounds, with only two being challenged by the respondents. They argue that the court should have preserved and heard the remaining ten grounds, even if the preliminary objections on the two were upheld. Furthermore, they assert that the court misinterpreted the evidence, as the affidavits relied upon in resolving the preliminary objections constituted valid evidence, which they argue is a violation of the law on preliminary objections, among other issues.”

In their appeal, which will be heard today, the CSOs ask the Appellate Court to overturn the First Instance Division’s decision to dismiss their EACOP case, return the Case to the First Instance Division for a merits hearing, and return the Case to the First Instance Division for a trial of the remaining aspects for which the governments of Tanzania and Uganda did not raise any preliminary objections.

They also want the First Instance Division’s decision to overturn the awarding of costs decision to the Tanzanian and Ugandan governments and the EAC Secretary General.

Related posts:

Appellate Division of the East African Court of Justice (EACJ) to hear an Appeal filed by CSOs which seeks to reinstate a petition against the construction of the EACOP project tomorrow. The Appellate East African Court of Justice sets timelines for hearing an appeal against the construction of the EACOP. The East Africa regional court dismisses a case challenging the construction of the EACOP project. EACJ TO GIVE A RULING ON THE PRELIMINARY OBJECTIONS RAISED IN THE EACOP CASE East African Court of Justice is to decide whether it has jurisdiction to try the EACOP case filed by Four East African NGOs today.
Continue Reading

Resource Center

Legal Framework

READ BY CATEGORY

Facebook

Newsletter

Subscribe to Witness Radio's newsletter



Trending

Subscribe to Witness Radio's newsletter