MVIWATA with other Farmers Organizations (FO) at national, regional and continental level participated in the 7th Farmers’ Forum in conjunction with the 43 session of IFAD’s Governing Council at the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) Headquarters, Rome Italy.
The forum brought together more than 80 Farmers’ Organization leaders and representatives of millions of smallholder food producers from 4th to 11th February 2020. Been under the umbrella of La Via Campesina, South and East Africa (LVCSEAF) and East Africa Farmers Forum (EAFF). MVIWATA was the only Farmer Organization from Tanzania at Farmers Forum that took place in Rome, Italy.
The Forum was opened by the President of IFAD Gilbert F. Houngbo on 6th February 2020 of which he affirmed the close collaboration of IFAD and Farmers Organization toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals one (1) and two (2). Following the opening of the Farmers Forum, the management of IFAD presented to Farmers’ Organizations its Trends and Partnerships with FOs which was followed with a plenary discussion.
On 7th February 2020 the presentation of IFAD 12 proposal by IFAD management was made and followed by a question and answers. Thereafter it was followed by a five parallel thematic working groups that includes; Climate change and agro-ecology, IFAD 12 new instruments ASAP+ and Private sector, United Nations Decade of Family Farming and the Road map for the Food Systems Summit 2021, Gender equality and women’s leadership in agriculture and Finally Youth in agriculture and rural development.
After side event discussions, the reports from the five thematic working groups were presented and the first discussion of draft Synthesis of Deliberations.
Different parallel FAFO side events were organized by farmers’ organizations at regional level and based on themes, these included United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants, Territorial markets for sustainable food systems, Branding of Family Farming products, Financing FO projects, FO profiling and digital platform, youth and agro-ecology, Voluntary guidelines on small scale fisheries and United Nations Decade of Family Farming.
Being a National and Membership-based farmers’ organization in Tanzania, MVIWATA’s representative at Farmers Forum Mr. Michael Neligwa had a plenty to share in side events and plenary discussions including experiences on farmers struggles on access to land, sustainable production systems, farmers experiences on linkage and access to markets, , gender equality and women participation in leadership and agriculture, y outh in agriculture and rural development and finally on how best to strengthen farmers’ organization and building their capacity to advocate their interests.
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