Summary of CSO Inputs (Cross-cutting)
2nd AMAF-Private Sector Dialogue on
Food Security
September 27, 2012
Vientiane, Lao PDR
Your excellencies from the ASEAN Ministers of Agriculture and
Forestry (AMAF), once again, on behalf
of the CSO delegation, please accept our sincere appreciation for this
opportunity to dialogue with you. Our strong presence here indicates our
commitment to pursue this dialogue process through the PPD platform to
pursue a shared policy agenda among
members of civil society in the Asean region,
in relation to our common fight for food sovereignty/security. We also
come to hear updates from the 1st
PPD in Jakarta in 2011, and to reiterate
our intent and actions to contribute to the progression of this important
dialogue process.
The CSO delegation during the CSO Forum on ASEAN Engagement
yesterday, our self-organized process to further prepare for the PPD, reviewed and discussed the summary of CSO
issues and recommendations that emerged during the Bangkok Preparatory Workshop. In that process, we affirm three key messages
around cross-cutting issues that we hope to convey to you today. We believe that these recommendations are
essential to the process of institutionalizing the AMAF-private sector
partnerships.
First, we call on your support to strengthen the mechanism
for regular dialogue between the Private Sector and AMAF. An institutionalized mechanism, such as the PPD, will help in creating a more integrative and
multi-sectoral approach in addressing priority issues they themselves identify.
We want to see this dialogue process strengthened by expanding it at the
national levels where CSOs and private business groups and governments can
sustain their confidence building process, and discussions or debates on
prioritized issues coming from the regional PPD. We hope that this can done at
least twice annually.
With a more sectoral focus, we take this opportunity
to reiterate our major call during the 1st PPD in Jakarta for ASEAN
to support the creation of a Small
Farmers/Producers Council which shall be composed
of representatives from small farmers and fishers/ producers organizations in
ASEAN Member States. Strongly organized at the national and regional
levels, they can bring a representative
voice and become one of ASEAN's strongest allies in pursuing a more sustainable
agricultural development in the region.
Their support institutions and partners from the broader development
community commit to support this agenda, in cooperation with existing and
appropriate working group or body within ASEAN, through the national SOM-AMAF
focal points, and the ASEAN Secretariat.
Secondly, we call upon ASEAN to promote international guidelines and
mandates by the United Nations and its attached agencies for food and
agriculture, in particular, the Voluntary Guideline on responsible
governance of Land tenure, forest, fisheries in the context of national food
security and the Principles for
responsible agricultural investment, for which the latter is still under discussion by the
World Food Security Committee (CFS). We request ASEAN to strengthen its
role in monitoring the adherence to and in translating these mandates into
regional operational guidelines. Building on what has been sanctioned my
some, if not all ASEAN member states, is a good strategy towards
institutionalization. CSOs in the region
have actively participated in pursuing these mandates at the global level and
we would like ASEAN to partner with CSOs to help us in making these global
guidelines or treaties really matter for our countries and the rural
communities that we work with. ASEAN
should develop Common Standards and Monitoring system, to protect and prepare smallholder
agriculture especially in the context of the ASEAN 2015 economic
integration and to create opportunities for
communities to engage and benefit from fair intra-regional trade. We would like to work with you, and
the private sector, in developing the
following:
- Regional Standards for Sustainable Agricultural Investments
- Sustainability Reporting Guideline (developed by the Global Reporting Initiative)
- Land Monitoring (land use and land rights)
- Good Aquaculture Practices
- Agribusiness Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Practices
In addition, we wish to
call on ASEAN's attention to the International
Year of Cooperatives (2012) in relation to the BKK
Preparatory Workshop recommendations to strengthen agricultural cooperatives
and the International Year of Family Farming (2014) in relation to the
recommendations to promote and support smallholder agriculture. We have two years to rally behind the UN
sanctioned IYFF and we call on ASEAN and its member states to support efforts
of CSOs to drumbeat and showcase the support for small men and women farmers, especially
the rural youth, at the national levels.
Finally, we strongly encourage ASEAN to strengthen its role as a
Learning Platform for smallholder
agriculture development. Where good practices both from the public and private sectors
(CSOs and business groups) are harnessed to optimize opportunities for
cross-learning, as input to policy making, and to build farmers/fishers
capacities to improve agricultural productivity, access to credit, and women's
economic role in agriculture. ASEAN should facilitate and support
regional knowledge and learning exchanges on priority areas for action,
such as:
·
Farmer – private sector partnership models
·
Women Empowerment in
Agribusiness
·
Enabling legal frameworks
(e.g. cooperative laws, social credit policy, organic agriculture act)
·
Small farmers/producers
access to markets
·
Agriculture Financing Services
especially for small farmers/producers
·
Sustainable Land use and Land
Reform Models
·
Sustainable Agriculture
Technologies including Post-harvest management
·
Crop insurance and other Social
Protection Programs for Small Farmers
These are some of our priority recommendations which we hope ASEAN
through the AMAF could act on in the immediate future. Among us CSOs, we also task upon ourselves to strengthen our
ranks and our bases of unity, to build our capacities for constructive
engagement, and to rally behind the efforts of those in the frontline of
development work, our partner Farmers/Producers' Organizations. We extend our hands to sustain the dialogue
with the business sector and together let us aim to fulfill our sustainable
development bottomlines of people, planet, profits, and peace.
Thank you.