Nyeleni is alive and well !

A few days ago, on an invitation from Via Campesina, I went to take part in a training seminar. This is an international course,  mainly for the initiation of the organisation's newly elected officials. It took place in Sélingué, in the south of Mali, from June 22nd to 25th 2009. At the Nyéléni centre to be precise.

For a start a brief introduction to the Via Campesina , a movement that all farmers' organisations should be familiar with. Via Campesina is an international movement of peasants, small and medium scale producers, landless people, rural women and youth, indigenous people and farm labourers. The foremost objective of the movement is to promote "solidarity and unity in diversity" among farmers' organisations and to work for sustainable agricultural production and local markets, based on small and medium size farms. Via Campesina was set up in 1993 and now has around 150 affiliated organisations in 70 countries all over the world.

If you ask why Via Campesina decided to hold its training seminar at the Nyéléni centre, the answer is simply: "Because this is where the World Forum on Food Sovereignty was held in February 2007, with the participation of over 500 representatives from 86 countries ." But it is surely also because West Africa is one of the regions in the world where peasant farmers suffer most from the perverse effects of liberalisation of international trade. Via Campesina has the endeavour to give Africa its rightful place. The setting up of the Nyéléni centre is one expression of this as well as the decision to transfer the International Secretariat to Maputo in Mozambique (the international secretariat of Via Campesina works on a rotating basis and remains in one and the same location for a maximum of two 4 year periods).

It is obviously up to each individual farmers' organisation to decide  which international setting it wants to be part of. The fact remains that those farmers organisations, which have food sovereignty on their agenda, already know that they have a reliable, faithful and well informed ally in Via Campesina. In West Africa many  farmers' organisations have already decided to have food sovereignty as one of their objectives. They could do well to consider joining the Via Campesina international movement of small and medium size producers, who fight to make food sovereignty come true in their home countries.

It is not possible to give a full account of all that happened during the four days at  Nyéléni. We had many interesting discussions on networking, allies, climate change, bio-fuel .. and even nanotechnology. There will be many opportunities to come back to some of these themes in the months ahead.

Via Campesina has also a policy of gender equality in designating men and women to its international structures and committees ... and from what I saw in Nyéléni, that works very well!

A quote from the Women's Declaration on Food Sovereignty will form the closing lines of this newsletter.

"Under the watchful eye of Nyéléni, an African woman who defied all the discriminatory rules and who was a shining light because of her creativity and her performance in agriculture, we shall find the necessary strength to bring about food sovereignty, the harbinger of hope for the creation a different world. This strength we draw from our solidarity. We shall bring this message out to women all over the world." (Nyéléni February 2007)."