Peasants’ Rights Achieve Climate Justice

Countries: Mozambique, Zimbabwe, DR Congo, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa, Mauritius

Partners: La Via Campesina SEAf (LVC) 

Allocated amount: DKK 3.556.656,85

The main purpose of this intervention is that the rights of peasants, their agroecological practices and their demand for climate justice are formative to rural and agrarian policies in South and Eastern Africa on local, national and regional levels. The means to do this is to support the LVC SEAf network as champions of the human rights of peasants. The intervention will specifically support the member organisations in the LVC SEAf network in their efforts to organise the small-scale food producers (SSFPs) in the region, educate them on their rights and push for the implementation of the UNDROP as a means to better their livelihoods and achieve climate justice.

Although LVC SEAf has achieved much in terms of mobilising peasants across the region, amongst others through previous interventions in partnership with Global Aktion (GA), the network still faces shortcomings to achieve its goals. The main challenges that this intervention seeks to address can be summarised as:

• Inconsistent level of know-how on the use of agroecological farming methods among SSFPs in the region and in LVC SEAf’s member organisations, leading to reduced farming outputs and less legitimacy by peasants in convincing farmers and policy makers of the usefulness of agroecology.
• Inadequate experience with strategic campaigning among key people in the member organisations and the SSFPs they represent including limited know-how about peasants’ rights as described in the UNDROP and on how to use the UNDROP as a tool for advocacy.
• Policy developments in land and agriculture sectors in the region are not informed by UNDROP and the promising evidence of the usefulness of agroecology in the light of climate change.

Development objective:

The rights of peasants, their agroecological practices and their demand for climate justice are formative to rural and agrarian policies in South and Eastern Africa on local, national and regional levels.

Immediate objectives:

The intervention builds on three immediate objectives: 

1:  By July 2024, peasants are empowered to practice agroecology and claim their rights, and the legitimacy of member organisations is strengthened.

2: By January 2024, LVC SEAf and members have developed key messages and advocacy material which demonstrates the value of agroecology and key priorities for implementing UNDROP and climate justice at national level

3: SSFPs have strategically advocated, campaigned and engaged with duty bearers in order to push them to respect, protect and fulfil the rights of peasants, and to support the scaling up of agroecology at national levels.

Target groups:

1.Political Officers. 2. Trainers of trainers (ToT). 3. The regional Agroecology and Climate Justice Working Collective. 4. Representatives from the LVC SEAf member organisations. 5. Ordinary members of LVC SEAf member organisations as well as potential new members. 6. Duty bearers who are gatekeepers in terms of advancing the fulfilment of peasants’ rights as described in the UNDROP

This project is organized by Klimagruppen