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IFAP report

World Summit on Sustainable Development

Prepcom, Bali, 2002

The last step to prepare the ground for the upcoming World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg took place in Bali Indonesia, May 27- June 7, 2002. This fourth preparatory Committee session, gathered government ministers, leaders of international organisations and 9 major groups from Civil Society –including the Farmers- aimed at finding a common ground for the implementation of Agenda 21. Progress was slower than expected at this conference and the political declaration has not been yet discussed officially.

This Prep Com broke was in three parts:

Interministerial meetings These led to a Draft Implementation to serve as a basis for the Johannesburg Summit declaration. This Draft Plan of Implementation

formerly called “Chairman’s text” has left about 27% of important issues bracketed, and thus to be negotiated at the Summit. These include

Chapter IX on the means of implementation covering finance and trade issues

Chapter X on the institutional framework for sustainable development

Time-bound targets such as a review by 2007 of progress in developing countries on phasing out energy subsidies.

It is important that trade and financial issues be agreed upon so as to form sine qua non conditions to achieve sustainable development targets and not the other way round.

Two sections of Chapter 38 on agriculture remain bracketed.

As Secretary General, Nitin Desai declared in a briefing session on the WSSD process Tuesday June 18th, “the problem is not time but finding common ground”. This is the challenge for Johannesburg. In order to facilitate- not to replace- the WSSD process and get an understanding on the concepts, he supported the idea of holding informal meetings the week of July 29 in New York. He mentioned that the Bali text has to be the basis for these discussions.

A multistakeholder dialogue (MSD) between the major groups, government representatives and intergovernmental organisations representatives. IFAP was strongly represented by 8 member organisations

from the 5 continents, led by M. Rémi Bailhache, (France). The MSD was held in three parts: an opening plenary on “governance”, two working sessions on “capacity building” and “implementation of partnerships” and finally a closing session to build on all the previous discussions.

Generally speaking, concrete solutions did not come up as expected from this multistakeholder dialogue. However, the Farmers Group led by the IFAP, took strong positions in each of these sessions. In the plenary session on governance, IFAP delegates stressed the importance of food security, the establishment of agricultural policies including related issues such as rural development, access and management of the natural resources, evaluation of the impact of trade agreements on the farmers’ situation, strengthening of farmers’ organisations capacities and their involvement in all the decision making processes, taking into account local knowledge and techniques as an integral part of sustainable development policies, improving public administration efficiency as well as strengthening basic public services such as health, education and communication for the benefit of rural communities.

At the session on capacity building, there was an IFAP position on the necessity to invest in integrated rural development plans through partnerships with different stakeholders, to set up institutional frameworks that support sustainable development policies, to develop international trade agreements that sustain the welfare and incomes of farmers, to establish a capacity-building fund for major groups, to support the development of rural banks managed by rural communities, to secure different rights for farmers –access to land, water and genetic resources.

As for the working session on partnerships, the Farmers Group insisted on the importance of the farming activity as a means to achieve sustainable development objectives such as the conservation of biodiversity and the social dimension. The Farmers also highlighted the necessity to build partnerships with the scientific community to deal with such issues as biotechnologies, and renewable energies. The need for the development of public-private sectors for the management of the water resources was also stressed.

Side events:

IFAP is invited to take part in the Implementation Conference project aiming at building partnerships with other major groups and stakeholders. IFAP is currently involved in preparing working groups on Water and on Food Security. For this implementation conference, the way forward to Johannesburg is for IFAP to identify areas of partnerships in these fields. This Implementation Conference will be held right before the official start of the Summit, in the form of different parallel workshops on each issue.

A lot remains to be done before the Johannesburg Summit starts on 26 August 2002. There is an urgent need for IFAP to identify partnerships with other stakeholders, using existing projects or building new ones. The World Summit on Sustainable Development is a good opportunity to implement sustainable development achievements in agriculture.

Please find attached, the part of the text which deals with agriculture

The IFAP delegation at Prep Com IV consisted of:

Ms. Bouchra AIT ALI SLIMANE, Head of the Department of Economy-National Chamber of Agriculture of Algeria, Algeria

Mr. Martinien DHOSSOU, Coordinator of FUPRO, Benin

Mr. Didier GONZALES , Member of the Board of directors, Mesa Nacional Campesina, Costa Rica

Mr. Guillaume Brûlé, Department of external affairs, Permanent Assembly of Chambers of Agriculture, France

Mr. Rémi Bailhache, Member of the executive board, Permanent Assembly of Chambers of Agriculture, France

Mr. Nicola Stolfi, Responsible of the department of environment, Confederazione Italiana Agricoltori, Italy

Ms. Yvette LOPEZ , Coordinator of Legal Policy Advocacy and Development Department, Pakisama, The Philippines

Mr. Tom Lambie, Vice President, Federated Farmers of New Zealand, New Zealand

Mr. Nicolaas M. P. OPPERMAN, Director of Natural Resources sector, Agri South Africa, South Africa