Press Release
Harare, 17 December 2019: As we celebrate, today the first anniversary since the adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) in December last year, we call on governments, social movements, allies and activists to step up efforts globally to ensure that the member states of United Nations are committed to implementing this important instrument. At La Via Campesina, we have reaffirmed Peasant Rights as one of the priorities of our 2020 agenda. It is important for LVC to popularise this Declaration and to build and share the knowledge and experience among our member organisations on how to use this Declaration.
During the year, together with our allies, we have been lobbying hard inside the United Nations General Assembly, UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the UN Human Rights Council, the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), the Global Committee for Food Security (CFS) as well as in our regions and countries, to create an international momentum that favours and promotes the implementation of the Rights of Peasants. La Via Campesina firmly believes that linking the contents of the UNDROP to the framework of the UN Decade of Family Farming (launched this year by FAO) will enhance the efforts to eradicate poverty, food insecurity and malnutrition through agroecological methods of food production for all – not only for rural communities!
As we celebrate the first anniversary of the adoption of UNDROP, La Via Campesina continues to push for social transformations. The UNDROP opens up opportunities to address inequality and discrimination which disproportionately touches the rural population worldwide. For the global peasant movement, the struggle for the promotion and protection of peasant rights is only half won. It is a collectively built process. What is crucial now is the political will and the path the member states of the UN will take, in making the contents of this Declaration become a lived reality for millions of rural families. What is important is that the UN Declaration is implemented in full letter and spirit in all countries of the world. We remain committed to this struggle!
