The U.S has taken some steps in the right direction. The President spoke unequivocally about the need to cut trade distorting agricultural subsidies during his speech to the UN General Assembly this past fall and Secretary of Agriculture Johanns and US Trade Representative Robert Portman have echoed the President's position. American negotiators have put new proposals on the table attempting to restart the stalled negotiations. But, it is still not enough to deliver on the promises of a "development round" and lift millions of people out of poverty.
The Doha Round of trade negotiation was supposed to change the dynamics on trade. Launched in 2001, negotiators announced that this trade round would put the interests of developing countries at the heart of the effort. But four years later, the negotiations have stalled and development concerns are sliding to the bottom of the agenda.
For the more than 2.5 billion people in the world that rely on agriculture for their livelihood, Hong Kong is more than a meeting of diplomats - it is an opportunity to meaningfully improve their lives. Throughout the world, poverty is concentrated in rural areas, with more than a billion people living on less than $1 a day. The average cotton farmer in Mali earns about $400 a year from the entire cotton crop. Between 2001 and 2003, Oxfam estimates that West African countries, including Mali, lost over $400 million dollars because US subsidies depressed global cotton prices. The backbone of Mali's economy, providing employment for more than 3 million people, falls victim to rules that have permitted rich countries to benefit for decades from dumping subsidized cotton. By leveling the playing field, we could have a massive impact on poverty reduction.
The Doha Round promised developing countries that it would do things differently, that the development of poor nations would occupy center stage. What that means is drastic cuts in agricultural subsidies and offers of market access for developing countries. But this will require that leaders of the U.S., EU and Japan see a greater good for both developing nations and their own citizens. In the US, it means envisioning a new era for American farmers that shifts subsidies from anachronistic, trade distorting support payments to new programs that support sustainable rural livelihoods and stewardship.
President Bush has delivered the right message on cutting subsidies. But the opportunity to lift millions out of poverty through fair trade rules still lies far out of reach. The US should take the lead and demonstrate to the rest of the world that we believe in the power of trade to change lives, and that we care about the lives of farmers in the US and abroad. Two and half billion people are watching and waiting.
]]>But then the Family Law coalition, five groups funded by Oxfam America that helped create and promote the new law, turned to the next phase of their mission: To ensure the new law is understood by a diverse population in a vast country of 19.5 million in 10 provinces, speaking six languages (with 16 dialects).
The new Family Law contains a number of revolutionary concepts for a country like Mozambique, which is struggling to emerge from poverty, conflict, colonization, and illiteracy.
A complete overhaul of marriage laws: The new law recognizes customary or non-formal traditional marriages, and allows widows to inherit land and other property. It also raises the minimum age of marriage for girls to 18, which will help encourage the next generation of females to gain secondary education. Women now have the right to seek divorce in the case of domestic violence or infidelity, and to create and enforce prenuptial agreements.
Redefining the status of women in society: Putting women on an even footing with men is essential for fighting poverty, in any country. "The old law increased poverty for women," said Maria Orlanda, secretary general of the Mozambique Women Lawyers' Association in Maputo. "They depended on husbands for assets and there was no way for them to accumulate wealth of any kind." Under the new Family Law, men are no longer the de facto head of a household. This authority is now shared with women, who also have the right to work outside the home without the permission of a husband or male relative, and to buy, own, and manage property or other financial assets.
"You have to understand the problems of grassroots people to really help them," says Rafa Machava, executive direct or Muleide, a women's rights and development organization that is part of the Family Law coalition in Mozambique. With funding from Oxfam America, Muleide is reaching out to people—particularly traditional leaders—in small communities, training them and promoting the new law in ways that do not create conflict with their concepts of family life, and the role of women in society.
Muleide targets traditional leaders as the key for real change in communities. "They are the voice that is trusted," Machava says, "and they open doors for you, as respected people in the community."
One of Muleide's central missions is to provide assistance to women who are in danger of domestic violence. "Many perpetrators of violence claim that there is a traditional basis for the conflict in their household, based on their beliefs," Machava said. "A man may say his wife is a witch, or has been cursed by ancestors, because she can't have children. Or the wife may say that the husband did not pay enough lobola, a dowry or bride price, and this makes her unable to have children. And if for any reason a child dies, you can have these sorts of conflicts. A wife can be sent back to her family, and they will consult a traditional healer for a solution."
Muleide's activists work with the traditional healers. "Our activists ask the healer to tell the couple about the new Family Law," Machava said. "We teach them in their local language, because they don't speak Portuguese, so that there will be no conflict between the advice from a traditional healer and the law. This is a way of showing that domestic problems can be resolved without violence, and people can learn that they can seek legal help from Muleide and other organizations." The organization trained 250 traditional healers in Maputo province in 2005.
Working with a traditional healer trained in the new Family Law helps people resolve problems based on traditions with which they are comfortable, while at the same time learning to respect the new law and avoid solutions that violate women's rights. This added expertise in the new law is of great interest to traditional healers, says Machava. "They openly say they work with Muleide because it brings them more customers," she said.
]]>The camp is only about nine miles from their village of Abu Hamra, which once was home to about 500 families. But after Janjaweed militia tore through the community burning dwellings and looting, Omar's family fled, as nearly two million other Darfur residents have done since conflict erupted in the region in 2003.
Omar's family was among the lucky ones. They survived the attack, but lost many of their belongings, including about 110 sheep. They arrived at Shangil Tobai with just a donkey, a bed, and a few clothes. There, they have joined nearly 20,000 other people, many of them from surrounding villages, who have squeezed into Shangil Tobai and a neighboring camp, Shadad, seeking safety from the violence that has shattered their communities.
Oxfam is helping about 400,000 displaced people scattered in camps like Shangil Tobai. The agency is supplying them with clean water and sanitation facilities as well as with essential household goods like soap and water containers. At Shangil Tobai, families have received two cooking pots, a cup, a bowl, a bucket, two jerry cans, a sleeping mat, and blankets.
But while people's basic needs are being met and Omar's youngest children are in school, there is little to fill the lives of camp residents at Shangil Tobai. In their two years at the camp, Omar's family has had no opportunity to earn an income, nor have they been able to plant their fields or harvest a crop. At the end of each month, there is rarely enough food left from the rations provided by international aid groups to feed everyone in the family sufficiently. And it has been nearly two years since any of them have eaten meat—a regular part of their diet back at Abu Hamra.
Danger circles the camp. Leaving its security to collect firewood for cooking is necessary—but risky. In recent weeks, raiders on camels attacked a small group on the edge of the camp, killing three people and stealing their animals. People are increasingly worried that such attacks will take place within the camps themselves.
Omar and his family long to go home, but they find it hard to envision any improvement in their situation in the near future. Talks aimed at a political solution that would bring long-term security to the region have progressed only haltingly.
"We miss our homes. We miss our village, our furniture, our animals, and also our privacy," said Omar. But until a political settlement is reached—and safety for civilians is guaranteed—it is simply too dangerous for Omar and his family to leave Shangil Tobai.
]]>The domestic violence bill is an attempt to thrust domestic violence out from behind closed doors and into the public realm, a difficult task in Zimbabwe and other African countries where many people do not consider women equal to men, and view abuse of women in the household to be a private matter. According to the Zimbabwe Women Lawyers Association (ZWLA), one of every four women in the country suffers some form of abuse in her lifetime, and sixty percent of murder cases are related to domestic violence.
Some notable and progressive features of the proposed domestic violence bill:
The Women's Coalition includes three Oxfam America partners: the Zimbabwe Women Lawyers Association, the Women in Politics Support Unit (WiPSU), and the Musasa Project. In previous years Oxfam America also funded the work of three other coalition members, the Association of Women's Clubs, Zimbabwe Adult Learners Association, and the Federation of African Media Women's Association.
If the bill is signed as expected it will conclude nearly six years of work. The Coalition's first efforts in 1999 were to educate women about a proposed constitution to replace one negotiated at the end of the liberation war in 1982. Critics of the draft constitution said it discriminated against women based on customary law. The Women's Coalition led a public education campaign that contributed to a defeat of the proposed constitution in a referendum in 2000.
The Women's Coalition then turned its attention to legislation to help improve the situation of women in Zimbabwe, and began researching and actually drafting a new domestic violence bill. It was first proposed to the Minister of Justice in 2001. In 2004 the Women's Coalition submitted a petition to the Minister with 10,000 signatures. In 2005 the effort gained momentum as Joyce Mujuru was named vice president, and the government established a new Ministry of Women's Affairs, and appointed another woman, Oppha Muchinguri, to this highly placed position. Both were supporters of the domestic violence bill.
The Women's Coalition did encounter some political resistance. First, it had to get approval from a special committee for legislature in the president's cabinet before the bill could be introduced to Parliament.
Emilia Muchawa, director of ZWLA, attended the cabinet committee meeting, and said that there were concerns about the articles that outlaw some traditional practices. "There were seven ministers, only one was a woman," she said. "They talked it over and one said, 'if this goes through, I would be arrested.' They could not look at it objectively. We asked them to separate their public role from their private life." Although the cabinet committee was not enthusiastic, Muchawa said they did feel a sense of responsibility. "They knew that they would have to step out of their personal life and answer for their constituency," she said.
After the cabinet approved the legislation in May of 2006, the Women's Coalition then had to find a way to promote the bill in Parliament, where only 24 of the 150 seats are held by women. The bill successfully passed in the House of Assembly in July. However in debates in the Senate in October, more resistance emerged as one member of Parliament, Timothy Mubhawu, said the bill would degrade the status of men and stated flatly, "Women are not equal to men."
Women's Coalition members protested the next day outside Parliament, and officials of Mubhawu's party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), disavowed his statements and suspended him from party membership. The bill passed the Senate and is now awaiting the president's signature. "I am sure he has a positive interest in signing the bill," Muchawa said.
When it becomes law, Zimbabwe's domestic violence bill will be the latest in a series of important legislative reforms that are helping women claim and defend their rights in southern Africa. It follows two important laws in neighboring Mozambique: the 1997 Land Law, and the 2004 Family Law, both of which help women gain legal title to and inherit land, an essential asset for a secure livelihood in a country dependent on agriculture. The Family Law also established clear laws for divorce, rights for women to hold jobs, and a minimum age for marriage. Oxfam America funded leading members of a coalition of women's organizations in Mozambique that researched, proposed, and promoted these laws.
As in Mozambique, Oxfam America's partners working together in Zimbabwe played important roles in the development, drafting, and lobbying of the domestic violence bill. "Oxfam America was the first organization to invest in the Women's Coalition," Muchawa said, noting that having the Coalition in place helped the work on the domestic violence bill get started. "We had a structure around which we could coalesce on this issue," she said.
Having a variety of groups in the Coalition helped it in three important areas. The first was ensuring the legitimacy of the bill they proposed. "They took the bill out to the public, and made sure there was adequate consultation," said Margaret Samuriwo, Oxfam America's senior program officer in southern Africa. "They also educated women in Parliament, so they understood the bill and could support it. Women in both the ZANU-PF and MDC parties in Parliament worked together to garner enough support." Lastly, Oxfam support for research, which documented the extent of domestic violence in the country and its toll on women, also proved crucial in this advocacy campaign. Having the facts and figures at hand helped members of the Women's Coalition make their case in Parliament and in the media.
]]>Some live along the lakeshore in small shacks built on stilts. Others live on the water in moored houseboats, rafts, and barges. From these simple homes, the fishers hurl out their lines and pull up their baskets, hoping to catch enough to feed their families and satisfy the middlemen in the fish trade.
According to the Fisheries Action Coalition Team (FACT), an Oxfam-funded partner organization in Cambodia, the fishers help support about 1.5 million people.
"The Tonle Sap is very, very important, not only for the people who live on and around the lake, but for all of Cambodia," said Pen Raingsey, project officer at FACT.
Each year, monsoon rains and melting snows from the Himalayas feed the Mekong River, swelling the Tonle Sap Lake. This yearly pattern nourishes a diverse underwater world of flooded forests and more than 100 species of fish.
But because the Tonle Sap is not only a source of food, but also a route for transportation and commerce, it faces increasing risks. Neighboring countries, corporations, and regional finance institutions want to blast rapids, develop hydropower dams, and build harbors on the Tonle Sap and its connecting waterways.
For fishers accustomed to picking up and moving with the changing tides, it's a difficult process to learn about these threats, let alone do anything about them. Water nomads as they are, fishers don't always meet up with their neighbors, or feel comfortable voicing their opposition to the government.
That's where the Fisheries Action Coalition Team comes in. The group navigates the Tonle Sap, networking with fishers and bringing them to shore to meet, exchange information, and tell decision-makers what effect their developments will have. Then FACT compiles the research into a database and uses it to refute claims that certain developments would have no negative impacts.
Because of this work, fishers on the Tonle Sap say they feel empowered to protect their way of life.
Sitting on a small motorboat in the middle of the muddy waters of the Tonle Sap, Ly Saloeun, 53, said FACT trained him to write reports, and work with his neighbors to advocate for change.
He is one of many key fishers, each learning how to protect their community.
"We want to encourage the local community to raise their concerns to the decision makers," Raingsey said. "Before, people had no time or rights. Now, when a problem occurs, they can find a way to resolve that problem."
]]>In the camps for displaced people that stretch along Chad's border and across conflict-torn Darfur in western Sudan, the concept is hard to explain. In a world of want—where violence has forced more than two million people from their homes—how do you describe an abundance so great that it needs a cookbook loaded with directions to keep it all straight?
That experience helped define just one of the jarring truths about the global distribution of food that Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio explore in their new book, Hungry Planet: What the World Eats. A grand photo essay 288 pages long, the book took the couple on a journey to 24 countries where they got to know 30 families and the intricacies of each family's weekly food consumption. Family recipes accompany every profile.
Brand names and plastic packaging proliferate on some of the pages, testament to the global reach of processed foods and beverages. But on other pages, seeds and raw grains sit in burlap sacks—some more empty than full. A few of those limp sacks belong to the Aboubakars: D'jimia Ishakh Souleymane, who is a widow, and her five children.
The lessons Menzel and D'Aluisio learned from their visits with the Aboubakars are hard to forget, and they hope that readers who consume the stories and pictures in their book won't forget them either.
"What we really wanted to do was help people who didn't have a clue understand what was going on in the rest of the world," said D'Aluisio. "It's important—especially for Americans."
For starters, consider the water situation at the Breidjing camp in Chad where the Aboubakars have now lived for more than a year and a half. Their home is a small tent on a sandy plain crowded with countless others just like it. Oxfam has been providing water to thousands of people in the camp. The minimum provision in emergency situations such as this is just shy of 4 gallons per person a day.
"Water is one of the biggest problems," said Menzel. "Thirty thousand people use a lot of water. There's a big difference between having a faucet and carrying water and standing in line for water."
When the Oxfam water truck arrives to fill an empty bladder—a storage device that looks like a giant water bed—the relief that ripples through the blocks of tents is palpable, added D'Aulisio.
"The water is so precious," she said. "I do not turn a faucet on without thinking of all those people."
D'Aulisio's relationship with her garden has also changed since visiting the Aboubakars. Now, she wastes nothing from it, preferring to invest whatever time it takes to can the extra fruits and vegetables it produces.
D'jimia works hard for the little bit of extra food she buys for her family. She earns about $1.35 a day toiling in the fields of nearby villagers—when she can get the work. She uses the money to buy fresh tomatoes or dried okra. But the bulk of her family's diet—three meals a day—consists of the aiysh she stirs up in a big black pot over a fire outside her tent.
Aid groups provide the rations for the roughly 30,000 people in the camp. The allotments are far from lavish, and amount to about 2,100 calories per day per person in the form of a cereal, such as sorghum or millet, and small scoops of pulses and a corn-soy blend. The rations also include small amounts of sugar and salt.
"Most of everyone looks like they're on the minimum amount of calories needed," said Menzel. The rationing system takes into account only the numbers of people in a family, not the size of their appetites or where they fall on the growth charts.
"If you've got a lot of teen-age boys, you've got some difficulty," added D'Aluisio, speaking from her own experience mothering hungry boys.
D'Aluisio and Menzel learned about some of the ins and outs of camp management during their three-night sojourn in a tent at the Oxfam compound outside of Breidjing.
"Staying in the compound was great," said D'Aluisio. "We got to hang out with the people who were there."
One of the things that became clear to the couple during their stay at Breidjing is how complex the business is of feeding, sheltering, and providing water and sanitation for tens of thousands of people in a remote, arid place.
"Most people who see it from the outside don't see the difficulty," said D'Aluisio of the logistics in just getting enough food to people. "Sometimes there is a disconnect between the giving and the getting, and that disconnect is infrastructure."
For example, the camp was giving food out every 15 days instead of every 30 days—which would have been half the work—because it didn't have enough on hand. Food reserves were far away, and there was no guarantee when new supplies would arrive.
The difficulty in stocking Breidjing—or any of the camps in Chad and Darfur where hundreds of thousands of displaced Sudanese have lived in limbo since early 2003—is just the tip of a problem that affects millions of people around the world every day.
"Most hunger in the world is politics based," said D'Aluisio. "There is more than enough food on the planet to feed everybody. It's just warped in terms of who's getting the food and who already has the food. There needs to be more equality than there is."
]]>Big international meetings like this are huge undertakings and almost always take on a feeling of a many-ringed circus. There are many side shows and a dizzying array of strange and interesting events.
But at the center of it all, remains an important focus: the world's governments have come together to negotiate trade rules. Rich countries and poor countries, big and small, have gathered to see if they can hammer out a new global trade agreement.
This "round" of negotiations was launched four years ago in Doha, Qatar—hence it's called the "Doha Round." The explicit purpose of the negotiations was to help developing countries gain more from the global trading system. Currently, trade is dominated by rich countries. Less than 20 percent of the world's population captures 80 percent of the world's trade. The poorest countries get the least.
Oxfam's mission in Hong Kong is to make sure that the needs of poor people are heard, and that the negotiations reform fundamental inequities in the rules. My job is to try to lobby US officials, talk to US media, and coordinate with our friends from other organizations and activist groups. It’s a lot to manage.
Luckily for me, we have good hosts. Oxfam Hong Kong is doing an extraordinarily good job. As one of the most prominent nonprofit groups in Hong Kong—in fact in all of China—they have a very important role. They are taking the message of Make Trade Fair to the streets of Hong Kong, talking to citizens, teaching, and listening. They have even taken out billboard space on Hong Kong's sparkling subway system
Today we are learning that negotiators are preparing a "development package" of agreements that would help the poorest countries. This is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, these countries really need help. On the other hand, the negotiation will be a failure for development if rich countries can package some small concessions and sell it, rather than undertaking a much deeper reform, particularly of agriculture trade rules. More on that next time.
Must go to bed now. Tomorrow we're expecting to see Oxfam's familiar "big heads"—gigantic fiberglass masks of the leaders of the eight richest countries in the world—doing a fun stunt with some surprise celebrity guests. Also the trade justice movement will stage a large rally and march through the streets of Hong Kong. The negotiations will formally start. And I'll be speaking on a panel on food aid. So the show begins...
]]>Rodolfo Pocop, the National Coordinator for the National Indigenous and Peasant Council (CONIC), says that despite this violent history, the indigenous people of Guatemala are well-organized, and mobilizing to protect their culture and defend their rights and ancestral lands.He feels their next big challenge is surviving in the "Free Trade" economy in the Americas. The number one concern: international mining projects, which Pocop saysis a significant threat to Mayan lands and culture. In a talk with Oxfam America staff in Guatemala, Pocop explains indigenous concerns about mining and indigenous lands and rights.
"Our ancestors taught us to love mother earth and live in harmony with all natural beings. All our political, economic, and social institutions are part of this heritage. This is the base on which we construct the future. The valleys, the plains, the mountains, the deserts, the oceans, the rivers, the condor, the eagle, the hummingbird, the puma, the jaguar—they are all witness to our collective systems of living, based on sustainability of humans and the environment.
We were kicked off our original lands by the colonizers, and then by our governments. We were divided in order to guarantee political control and pushed onto inhospitable lands. We are now trying to manage these lands by the conservation of biodiversity and natural resources. This started in 1492 and continued through the 19th century. In 1954, the best, most productive indigenous lands were passed to private hands, like the banana companies. Big areas now grow cotton and sugar cane; the best lands are for coffee production. In 1954, our culture and our collective ways of living were destroyed, and collective property was abolished.
[From 1960] until 1996, there was an armed conflict. Part of the reason for this was the concentration of wealth in the hands of no more than 30 families. They had all the economic and political power and social control over the country. Seventy percent of the population, the indigenous people, did not even have basic legal rights. We did not get any benefits from the government, we were just used as cheap labor, almost slaves or indentured servants. During the 36 years of armed conflict, 83 percent of the victims were among the indigenous Mayan people.
In Guatemala we have a republican constitution, almost a literal copy of the US Constitution. Only in articles 66 to 70 are indigenous people mentioned. We are seen as resources and folklore. Our fundamental rights are not recognized.
Discrimination is structural, it comes from the government, and it is replicated in the educational system. It teaches more about other cultures than our own. And for that reason, when we speak our own language and wear our traditional clothing, they say that we are inferior to those who are not Mayan. They assume that other peoples' culture is superior to that which is here.
If the state structure discriminates against indigenous people, then this is converted into exclusion from development. These last four years we have seen an example of this exclusion : 85 percent of the national budget was spent in the urban areas; 15 percent was for rural areas. But not even this amount reached the countryside due to high levels of corruption and misuse of funds.
The social fabric of indigenous communities has been torn. If we have survived for 500 years, it is not just chance. It is because our grandmothers and grandfathers have taught us to survive by growing crops without chemical fertilizer, and to live together, in solidarity, in harmony between humans, nature, Mother Earth, the birds, and animals."
"Before the first conquerors came, the Maya worked with gold, and silver, and other metals. They used these resources, but for personal and domestic usage. It was not for export. Now the extraction of metals comes with a cost. It is breaking the harmony between families and nature.
We are concerned about mining, and the way it is done, with open pits. Cyanide is highly toxic for humans.
We also can't understand why these companies don't respect something very important and fundamental to our survival: our own perspective and spirituality. Ours is not any old religion. Our spirituality is precisely the harmony between humans, Mother Earth, space, and nature. When we see the respect to Mother Earth is lost, we feel our roots are touched. And that is what is taken from us. It is like an extermination of our cultural identity, a moral extermination of our historical memory, of our grandmothers and grandfathers and what they have contributed to the development of humanity. This is the harmony of the Maya.
A whole system of life and culture is being destroyed. Scientific data and analysis show one impact, on nature, but to us it is deeper. We feel like this kind of mining represents a destruction of life and culture. So we are denouncing this new system of development, because it is passing over our right to be consulted, which is protected by the International Labor Organization Convention No. 169.
The benefit of mining to Guatemala is about one percent of the earnings generated, and only about half of one percent is for the municipality. So after all the millions and millions are taken out, half of one percent is nothing. And after they are done, they will leave our lands and they will be no longer useful for agriculture.
In the case of the Marlin mine, they project 109,000 ounces of gold and silver. With this comes the destruction of 10,000 hectares of land. There will be a lot of Mayan communities unable to survive into the future.
Our struggle going forward as indigenous people directly affected by mining is based on three principles: we will keep struggling so that our cultural rights as indigenous peoples are recognized; under no conditions will we negotiate with the government or companies the principles of lands and territories—we have a territory, and this should be respected; and we have the freedom of self determination about our lands and territories and their resources."
"We do not have a formal mining code that reflects our world view. Our ministry of energy and mines does not recognize that we have a right to be consulted each time they want to take a product out of our territory. Our government does not take into consideration the priorities of the indigenous people. It does not know about rural poverty and realities and does not understand indigenous peoples.
A high level commission is now developing a mining law. The government is trying to please every sector—using a sort of double discourse. When they speak to us, they say "Oh, you indigenous people, we love you and admire you" and they are going to give us all these things. And when the transnational companies come, they do the same thing. It is selling Guatemala, and keeping a good relationship with everyone while doing it.
The issue is not for them to give us something; the issue is for them to recognize our ancestral rights."
]]>Groups like the National Family Farm Coalition, the Federation of Southern Cooperatives, the Missouri Rural Crisis Center, and Rural Coalition, carried out direct advocacy of their own, telling their elected officials that trade agreements should protect food sovereignty, not threaten it. Just as the Central Americans wanted to avoid the US flooding their surplus commodities into their market, small-scale American farmers wanted their government to pursue policies that supported them, not the huge agriculture corporations that would benefit from DR-CAFTA.
"This agreement is absolutely horrible for us livestock producers," said Rhonda Perry, a farmer and head of Oxfam partner, Missouri Rural Crisis Center. "It's also not beneficial for farmers in the DR-CAFTA countries. All these promises about export markets, clearly, that's not what happens. There are a few multinational corporations that have no allegiance that make out like bandits. The rest of us are stuck picking up the pieces."
Oxfam America created opportunities for Central and North American farmers to meet, learn from each other, and work together to oppose unfair trade. The National Family Farm Coalition worked with members of Iniciativa CID in Washington, DC to help them bring their concerns directly to members of Congress and share perspectives, farmer to farmer.
"This was really a united front even though people were coming at it from different angles. It was a chance to develop shared understanding about CAFTA's negative impacts on farmer livelihoods in both the US and Central America," said Jaeda Harmon, a US Regional Office Program Officer at Oxfam America
]]>She was writing her name in Chinese characters, painstakingly shaping each slope and spike, trying to remember what she learned in school.
She'd lived her 30 years in this remote village on a mountain with no official name. She was a picture of dignity in a place facing difficult times.
For generations the people on this mountain had cut and sold timber. Then, just a few years ago, the Chinese government banned logging to conserve trees.
It was an important decision for the environment, one that helped protect the watershed of Lashi Lake. But it eliminated some important interaction for the Yi people who live here. An ethnic minority who only met with the lowland Han people when they sold their timber, they risked being left behind.
To survive the logging ban, the Yi needed a plan.
Green Watershed, an Oxfam America partner, came up with one. After consulting with the villagers, they discovered potatoes could replace timber as a cash crop. And the women who formed the backbone of the community could learn to speak Mandarin and write Chinese characters so they could sell and trade the potatoes to the Han at the base of the mountain.
In May, I went to China, Cambodia, and Thailand to capture stories like these, illustrating Oxfam America's work in Asia. I had never been to the region before. Like so many in the West, I knew about the extreme poverty only from the media.
But suddenly there I was filling notebooks with the results of our work, watching village after village preserve their way of life using their own expertise:
Rice farmers in Cambodia finding a niche in the market, creating the first organic rice mill in the country. Burmese refugees studying law, risking their lives to document human rights abuses back home. Fishers living on the Tonle Sap lake measuring the impact of over-fishing and developments planned for their community.
I marveled at the dignity of these men and women. They just wanted what we all want: to make a decent a living and feed their families.
Some sought to do the work their families had done for generations, only to watch the developed world encroach on their waterways and flood plains. Some needed to diversify and adapt their way of life.
But for others, the plan was even more ambitious. Let's say these communities make enough to get by.
Then what?
Then, it turns out, Oxfam partners help them learn how to participate in development decisions. They diversify their work options and insist on better governance. They put money away and buy farm equipment, fishing boats, tuition for their kids. They build health clinics, schools, and courtyards for meetings, traditional dancing, and singing with family and friends.
In short, when poor people aren't so poor anymore, they can effectively plan for the future.
What I saw during my travels illustrated the vast range of work Oxfam and its partners do in the regions.
And surrounding it all are the many challenges—few resources, limited participation in decision-making, outside interference, droughts, floods.
But somewhere in between, the work gets done.
A woman writes her name. A village survives.
]]>I came to the delegation committed to fighting poverty wherever it exists. I also came as an Iowa farmer wanting to build solidarity among all farmers.
In Edinburgh, I experienced a global community serious about ending the kind of poverty that kills 30,000 children a day. At the concert in Edinburgh, 40,000 people, enjoying a free concert, stood on their feet and cheered as Bono told the crowd that he'd asked the most powerful world leaders to "spend your money" to end poverty. This powerful connection between democracy and government action reinvigorated my passion to make sure that Americans become part of this historic movement.
The experience of the ONE delegation provided me an opportunity to see the world with more optimistic eyes. Also, sharing this experience with some of the most impassioned and successful activists from across the United States refueled my own activist energy. Home in my office and on my farm, I've already done interviews and continue to share my experiences with family, friends, and colleagues. I will continue to advocate and fight for US agriculture policy that is fairer for farmers in both the developing world and in the rural communities of my own country.
We are living in a historic time. I want every American to understand that the citizens of Earth have the power to end life threatening poverty. I want my fellow Americans to be a part of that historic victory and not spectators. Our democracy and our great wealth give us the power to lead the fight, and I will do all I can to help Americans see the choice each ONE of us is making: to lead or to stand back and watch.
]]>Today Djimon, Sally Baden (Oxfam’s cotton expert extraordinaire) and I drove an hour and a half from Bamako to meet farmers in Fana, a cotton producing village.
When we got there, we sat with 20 of the farmers in their small village and talked with them about how they grow and harvest cotton. It was the beginning of the cotton producing cycle and the farmers had just planted the precious seeds. They said they were waiting for the rain to come. They were worried that if it didn’t come soon they would have to replant.
We could sense the farmers’ anxiety, as we watched them pray and dance to bring on the clouds.
As if out of a movie, the more we talked, the longer they prayed and danced, the darker the skies became. Our host, Keiffa Diarra, a representative to the national union of cotton farmers, laughed and said his new American friends had brought with them a gift—the rain.
Soon enough the farmers got their wish and the skies opened up, drenching us.
We ran like mad to the local school, where students had just finished their academic year, leaving behind their empty benches and desks. Djimon and I huddled together with the locals (farmers, mothers, children, goats), shouting over the lightning and talking about their struggles.
They told us they were barely getting by after the price of cotton plummeted. Just two years ago they were selling at 210 CFA ($.40) a kilo, but these days they get only about 160 CFA ($.31). Most of the farmers only make a profit of about $100 a year. It’s not enough for life’s basic necessities: educating their kids, paying for medication when they are sick, putting food on the table.
Ironically, the rain they prayed and danced for ended up flooding the village. Meanwhile, three wells in the village were incapacitated because of broken pumps. With their dwindling cotton income, the villagers said they couldn’t get enough money together to fix the pumps. That meant they didn’t have clean water, let alone water good enough for drinking.
Soon the rain overwhelmed us. The roads were wet and muddy, but rather than sleep in the dark schoolhouse with no electricity, we decided to try to get out of town.
Rather than speed away, though, we sunk. Both vehicles got stuck about a mile from the main road and we had to call for all the men from the village to help pry us out and push the car to high dry land.
We were filthy and tired and ready to get back to the dry clean hotel. Hopefully tomorrow will be a bit drier.
The next day, stifling heat replaced the rain. We drove almost three hours to the region of Bougouni. There, we were put to work on Modou Diallo’s cotton farm. Modou is also a representative of the national cotton growers union. We turned the soil to prep the land for planting. Djimon steered the hoe while two unruly donkeys pulled it along. It was about 90 degrees Fahrenheit under the blazing sun and we were working very hard. After we turned the soil, Modou explained his current situation to us.
Modou said he only made about $60 last year, after he finished paying off his farming expenses. Djimon was shaken by the conversation. He said he knew that much of the world managed to get by on just $2 a day. Modou and his family were living on just 16 cents.
Djimon said that something had to change. He said we couldn’t continue to look the other way when this kind of poverty is happening hurting so many people. You know something is wrong when the world’s richest countries and the world’s poorest countries are competing in the same market, but the rich countries aren’t playing by the rules that they themselves set.
After a two-hour, bumpy ride along a narrow road, we arrived in Kebila to meet cotton farmers who are cultivating organic and fair trade cotton. They told us that after receiving lower and lower prices each year, they had fallen into debt, which is why they decided to shift into a niche market like organic cotton.
Organic cotton doesn’t allow the expensive pesticides to enable growth but organic fertilizer that the farmers make themselves from the natural resources among them. Though this type of farming is more labor intensive, farmers can save themselves some out-of-pocket expenses by using their own natural resources to make organic fertilizer. They can also sell their cotton at a higher price when it has the organic label.
They felt organic cotton represented was one solution to their growing problems. With cotton prices dropping significantly they knew they either had to adapt, diversify, or eventually lose their land.
Because the demand isn’t as high for organic cotton as conventionally farmed cotton, they were still at a disadvantage, which meant they weren’t selling as much as they used to. But selling at a higher price allowed them to keep their jobs for the time being.
Djimon told the farmers that part of his job as a US citizen would be to start educating the public about organic and fair trade cotton to try to grow the demand. Djimon also promised that he would begin to call on our leaders to address the cotton crisis immediately.
We agreed that though prices fluctuate we must come up with a better system. We must demand a change to the rules of trade, which continue to devastate small farmers everywhere.
Djimon felt the next important step for him to take was to participate in the events going on around the G8 in Scotland. He knew that he could stand in as a representative from Africa who understood the struggles Africans are faced with. He could demand that our world leaders make a historic promise and deliver on it for Africa.
Djimon shared stories about his trip to Mali when he stood alongside the thousands of activists in Scotland from the US, Africa and Europe. At the end of the summit, G8 leaders made important progress for the world’s poorest people, by confirming debt cancellation for 18 highly indebted poor countries in Africa and doubling aid to reach $50 billion by 2010.
However, the outcome from the G8 leaders has fallen short of the hopes of Djimon and the millions around the world campaigning for a momentous breakthrough, especially on trade issues. Although some progress was made on a plan to reform the farm subsidies that keep Africa’s farmers poor, the G8 stopped short of setting an end date for scrapping these damaging subsidies.
Djimon hopes that rich countries will change their negotiating position in the trade talks in the run up to the December Hong Kong WTO ministerial, if people in poor countries are to be given a fair chance to work their way out of poverty.
]]>Oxfam shares common interests with FUNDE, especially when it comes to civil society. For example, the Make Trade Fair campaign had a very strong reception in El Salvador. And FUNDE did a lot of research on the drop in coffee prices on the international market, which helps support Oxfam's work.
A lot of the work we do around CAFTA is with Oxfam's help. Oxfam has provided support, training and capacity building—everything related to organizational development.
The difference between El Salvador and the US—we don't have subsidies like US farmers have. On the one hand, there's a highly subsidized agriculture and on the other, there's a poor economy, which doesn't have subsidies.
CAFTA would basically open our economy up to the largest economies in the world, which is the US.
Whatever affects agriculture is going to translate into socioeconomic problems. My country's economy depends on agriculture. And our ability to produce our own food depends on agriculture.
CAFTA is about more than trade. Foreign investment for example. The agreement favors protecting foreign capital. This is an agreement that really takes away the flexibility of local governments to enact policies that meet their own objectives.
In addition, it creates a very damaging relationship between investors and the state. This relationship allows the investor to sue the state if things don't go the way they want.
FUNDE works at two levels. One is the regional level in Central America, in which the CID initiative plays an important role. It allows us to coordinate actions like this one that brought us to Washington to influence Congress.
There's also the national level. There, we have a direct relationship with several organizations, unions, churches, local governments, environmental organizations, micro enterprises. We provide information to these different groups. At the same time, we try to craft proposals that reflect the interests of those sectors. For example, these organizations decided to reject CAFTA after we completed an analysis of each chapter of the agreement.
Also we have a relationship with US agencies where we present the negative effects of CAFTA. We basically demand actions to prevent, but also mitigate, what CAFTA would produce.
Every chapter of CAFTA, such as agriculture, environment, and intellectual property—basically every country has its own way of approaching these things. But, in general, we try to integrate the regional view. This allows us to work at two levels, international and national.
The problems that we face in our countries—there is just a superficial understanding. But there are differences between the Congress people. There is a lot of opposition, but many say they have not decided how they will vote.
Whatever happens, we have given them information. In the future, they cannot say that they didn't know. Because we told them.
]]>If she does, there's a chance she will be beaten or raped. If she doesn't, she won't be able to cook breakfast for her children. Even the donkey might starve. Piles of rotting carcasses along one edge of the camp are a constant reminder that many other animals have perished.
Muna isn't her real name, but the difficult choices this mother of five has to make are very real. And so are the dangers she and countless other women face each day in Darfur. In some camps, women, children, and old men make up the majority of the population. Many of the younger men have been killed in attacks.
Not collecting firewood or fodder would have other consequences as well. The first provides cash to help Muna feed her family, and the second keeps her donkey healthy enough to haul water.
Muna and her children are among the hundreds of thousands of families in Darfur who receive monthly food distributions from the World Food Program. The staple grains, a protein-rich mix of corn and soy, and cooking oil are a welcome contribution, but Muna needs a few other ingredients to prepare even the most basic meal. She sells some of the firewood in the local market to earn a few extra dinars to buy onions, tomatoes, dried okra, or chilies to supplement her family's diet. Without the firewood, she would have to sell a portion of the food ration itself in order to buy the additional items. But the amount she receives each month is already barely enough to survive.
The donkey fodder is also very important, since Muna needs her donkey to carry water from the nearby well several times a day. When that well runs dry, as it often does this time of year, she must travel even farther to fetch water. This, too, can be a perilous journey that exposes her to potential violence.
But even the camp that Muna shares with 15,000 other displaced people isn't particularly safe. The straw walls of her small compound provide some privacy, but no real protection. Her "house" is just a shelter made of sticks and plastic sheeting. Sometimes armed men come into the camp at night. They shout and laugh and fire their guns into the air, terrorizing the population.
On the day an Oxfam team arrived for a field visit, the body of a camp resident had been found near the dry riverbed on one side of town. People said he had been beaten to death during the night. The previous week, a group of men from outside the camp visited a house not far from Muna's. They beat the man who lived in the house and raped his wife.
Beyond the perimeter of the camp where Muna lives, there are other groups of people who don't seem afraid at all. Nomadic tribes continue to roam freely in this area. Some of them ride horses and camels, and some of them carry guns. They keep watch over enormous herds of cattle, camels, sheep, and goats. Their animals graze peacefully among the charred ruins of mud-brick huts in the many abandoned villages that dot the landscape.
Of course, not all nomadic tribes are affiliated with the notorious Janjaweed militias that continue to terrorize civilians throughout Darfur. But the contrast is striking: Most of the nomads the Oxfam team met in the Wadi Salih area were confident, reasonably well-fed and secure, while Muna and her neighbors are often sick and hungry, and live in constant fear.
Although people in Muna's camp can see their destroyed village in the distance, they insist that it is too dangerous to return. The armed groups prowling the countryside have effectively imprisoned the displaced Sudanese in the camp.
Retrospective mortality studies have shown that violence has been the leading cause of death in Darfur since the region plunged into conflict in February 2003. It is difficult to calculate exactly how many people have died, but one thing is dreadfully clear: The violence continues.
Every morning, in hundreds of camps and towns across Darfur, mothers like Muna get up to face yet another day filled with threats of robbery, murder, and rape. The fear is debilitating, but the options are few. After agonizing over the alternatives, Muna will go out to collect firewood and fodder. She can't afford not to.
]]>My grandmother told us that we were many, many Secoyas, between the Rio Napo and Putamayo, near the frontier with Colombia. We must have been over 8,000 there?
At the time of the Spanish conquest many people died from measles and mumps. And even when my grandma was a little girl, she had to escape into the jungle to avoid such terrible diseases. She said that nobody came to help them; people were dying in their houses, like chickens.
Then came the rubber boom. The rubber producers held the Secoyas as slaves. Many Secoyas drank poison to liberate themselves from the indignity of forced labor. Others fled deeper into the jungle.
After all this dislocation the Secoyas regrouped in about 1970. We were only 120 people. And those remaining 120 people, along with their children and grandchildren, were the ones who had to endure the impact of the oil companies. And of those 120, I was one.
This is to contextualize what is happening today. These 120 continue to suffer. Two [just] died of cancer, and eight years ago more people died of cancer. So we wonder, for those 120 native people and their descendants, if our days are numbered too; if some sickness will take us instead of a natural death. This is to say that life is uncertain now.
The oil companies have had a significant cultural impact, especially on our territory. How we used to live—naturally, that is—is no longer natural. We are experiencing the impact of many other cultures, especially from [modern-day migration]. Before we didn't need money because we had everything we needed. There were animals and fish; there was fruit, and medicines. Everything was found in the forest. But now we must go out to buy everything.
We also need to buy notebooks and school supplies. We are now surrounded by school walls in order to learn. The education beforehand for the Secoyas began at four in the morning. The elderly people in the community worked with the young people, teaching them weaving. They also told stories, legends, which taught respect for older people.
Though we agree that education should take place in the classroom, we are not in agreement that the only thing that should be taught is what the government decides should be taught. We see that we are not educating ourselves and our children in the way that our ancestors taught us. In that sense we are losing our culture. Now the youth doesn't know about our legends and our stories and our customs. And this is why now, through our own bilingual education, we are trying to reintegrate our own values, our own cultures, and our own traditions into our education.
Another great impact is on the environment. For example, we no longer have animals because one step behind the oil companies came the colonists. And every time the colonists found an animal they had to shoot it, they had to kill it. [The animals] withdrew farther and farther away. And now we no longer have territories in which we have everything we need around us; in which we can go from one side to the other. Everything has its owner. Now there are other communities—Shuar communities and Kichwa communities—which were ours before. This is a reduction of our territory. Right now we're enclosed and circumscribed by different pacts. There is one pact with the oil company; the African palm company [harvesting hearts of palm]; the colonists; even other indigenous people who have migrated here from their ancestral homes in other provinces.
What has really damaged us is the pollution in the rivers. This is really the worst part, along with the contamination in the air and the earth itself on which we cultivate our plants and our food. These are the terrible effects that have been visited upon us.
Although we talk about remediation, I think it will be difficult to repair what has been damaged. I think perhaps we will never be able to, because even though we might repair the natural environment, modern society is here among us—on our doorstep—and we will never be able to repair that.
We have seen many new sicknesses that we didn't see in our people before. We the Secoyas knew how to cure ourselves when those sicknesses were natural sicknesses. But now, with these unknown diseases, not even the best healer among us knows how to cure them. I think if we don't now have people who really know how to cure those previously unknown diseases, if we don't resolve this case against Texaco, then the very few Secoyas that remain—about 400 of us—will lose our culture and we may be finished off by sickness or disease. Or for other reasons we will disappear bit by bit. This is what I can tell you about the impact of the oil industry on the Secoya people.
Yes there is a hope for us, in the way that we have been organizing around Texaco because the Sionas, Secoyas, and Cofanes, we are the ones who have lived here in Sucumbios. We are the original owners of these territories and we have seen all of the damage that has been done here. So we organized through some friendly organizations—they came and told us about human rights—before we knew nothing about human rights. And through friends and allies the Sionas, Secoyas, Cofanes, and Kichwas started to organize in order to bring justice to this case.
We, as one part of the affected people, believe that since we have already waited 10 years [while the case languished in the United States courts]; we could wait and continue another 10 years if necessary. This is our priority. People are saying: "If we don't get this resolved, what are we doing? If we can't drink the water from our traditional sources—then what?"
So we are newly united since the case has been presented in a court here, and now we are just waiting for the judge's decisions. We are assisted by Oxfam America and other people. We feel we are engaging in common work to ensure a future for the people who are in danger of disappearing.
We can't waste time being sorry about what has happened. We have to be able to defend and exercise the same rights as Spanish-speaking mestizo people do in our own territory.
]]>