Call for Contributions on Changing Rural-Urban Dynamics!

HIC

On February 3rd, 2017 the Open Ended Working Group (OEWG) of
the CFS on Urbanization and Rural Transformation (UR&RT) adopted
“Call for Experiences and Policy Approaches in Addressing Food
Security and Nutrition in the Context of Changing Rural-Urban Dynamics”
, which includes the template for submission of case studies in all UN official
languages ENESFRRUARCH.

The aim of the CALL is to collect short summaries of experiences and
policy approaches addressing food security and nutrition in the context of
urbanization and rural transformation with the primary focus on rural-urban
linkages.

For relevant thematic areas and criteria for
selection 
of the submissions the please refer to this link.

Please note that the call does not intend to collect only successful
case studies
, but rather the experiences, regardless their positive
results, as failed policies are food for thought and improvement in the future.
The main focus should be on lessons (positive
and negative) and on how gaps, obstacles and other adverse
conditions (administrative, economic, political etc.) were addressed.

The case studies can be submitted in all official UN languages
(AR, CH, EN, ES, FR, RU)
, using this template and should not exceed 1000
words.

In addition to using these experiences in the CFS process, as CSM we
will use them to also create our own understanding of how we view rural
transformation that supports the right to food and nutrition in the context of
food sovereignty
.

Deadline for submissions is March 15, 2017, however as
we intend to collect CSO case studies and submit them together in the name of
CSM though CSM WG on Urbanization and Rural Transformation, please send your
submissions before March 10 to Imogen Ebsworth at Imogen.k@gmail.com

Why is it important for the CSM to contribute?

The CFS lunched the work stream on urbanization and rural transformation
in December 2015 and so far it was focused on the identification of the
policy relevant areas 
for the CFS arising from urbanization and rural
transformation.

As a second stage the work steam wants to collect
case studies reflecting the experiences 
in this regard. It is expected
that based on the analysis of the submitted documents, the CFS will identify
key messages to be discussed on the CFS 44 forum.

In general the topic of the work stream is very important for
the civil society as 
it covers food security problems related to
the socio-economic changes currently taking place in the world called
urbanization and rural transformation.

Rural areas stewarded by peasants, pastoralists and small scale fishers,
as well as indigenous territories, have not only always been main providers of
culturally appropriate food to the world, but also the sources of agricultural
biodiversity, locally bread varieties, as well as the centers of knowledge related
to local ecosystems; today, these historically fundamental systems as changing
dramatically.

We believe that the great shift in the history of mankind, called by
this work stream as a “rural transformation”, is caused together
with other reasons mainly by external factors and city centered policy
approaches
. Thus it is very important that civil society facilitates
that the voices of the most affected – smallholder rural producers, women,
youth, urban poor and other vulnerable groups – are heard and reflected in the
policy analysis and documents.

We believe that integrating the rural vision, listening to the voices of
the rural people and exploring the potential of rural areas through innovative
approaches such as agro-ecology and local food systems is key to understand how
to do RT without dismantling peasant agriculture.

Please contribute yourself and/or help us to disseminate the call though
forwarding this email to:

  • Relevant
    organizations and
  • Constituencies!!!

Thank you for helping us to bring the voices of the most effected in the
discussion of the CFS!