As a maker of small grants around the world, it is often a challenge for us to gauge the full extent to which our grants have real effects. The most obvious effects are, of course, those observed at the grassroots level. But part of our hope and our mission is that these effects reverberate beyond the scope of a single grant.
In many cases, the scope of a small grant can be amplified if the grantee is part of a regional network of likeminded citizen organizations and community activists.
Our attempt then has been to encourage our grantmaking advisory boards to recommend grants that draw upon and fortify such networks so as to effectively link local groups with other local groups throughout the region and the world. Networks can even be used to make heard the voices of communities and activists from the global south at the key junctures where international policy is made. In addition to affecting community change then, we believe that this is the way to grow social movements.
Global Advisor: Pesticide Action Network
We have recently seen some exciting results of this networking demonstrated by Pesticide Action Network (PAN), one of Greengrants’ global advisors. PAN is a global network of activists working to both eliminate the trade and use of toxic pesticides and promote sustainable alternatives. Greengrants has worked with PAN for years, supporting its work through grants recommended by its members in Latin America, North America, Europe, Africa and Southeast Asia. PAN has brought together activists from around the world who, like our regional advisors, identify and recommend community-based organizations for small grants. The PAN advisors are unique, however, in that they share a common goal and strategic approach to addressing issues related to pesticide use. Greengrants works with PAN because we have witnessed the effects of its strategic grant recommendations at the community level and beyond. And because PAN is a global network, it is particularly well situated to ensure that their gains have a global reach.
For the past four years, PAN has participated in the United Nations-sponsored International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD). The IAASTD was commissioned to outline an approach to resolving current food crises and to articulate a new approach to global agricultural production. This April, the final intergovernmental plenary of the IAASTD took place in Johannesburg and involved the participation of the various agencies of the United Nations, International Financial Institutions, the scientific community, civil society, and corporate and governmental representatives. PAN worked to ensure that the plenary was a balanced one, preventing in turn its co-optation by the agrochemical and biotechnology industries; PAN argued for a greater inclusion of community groups and NGOs in order to offset the interests of industry.
The effects of Greengrants’ support for PAN’s grant making vis-á-vis the IAASTD are twofold, since PAN aimed to affect both how the IAASTD’s international policy coordination happened as well as its outcomes. In the first place, PAN endeavored to make the process a more inclusive one by sending representatives from community-based organizations to participate at various stages throughout the deliberation process. In the second place, these participants advocated for a more balanced panel of authors than would have otherwise been the case.
In April 2008 at a meeting in Johannesburg, 58 countries approved the IAASTD final reports and in doing so, showed their support for its recommendations that global agricultural production should be modeled on small-scale, sustainable farming. Neither Canada nor the United States was among the signatories.
The African Centre for Biosafety, Greenpeace, AGENDA (Tanzania), Consumers International, Friends of the Earth International, Pesticide Action Network, International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements, Third World Network, Uganda Environmental Education Fund, Vredeseilenden and Practical Action collectively issued a statement on the IAASTD report. They concluded that “the report reflects a growing consensus among the global scientific community and most governments that the old paradigm of industrial, energy-intensive and toxic agriculture is a concept of the past. The key message of the report is that small-scale farmers and agro-ecological methods provide the way forward to avert the current food crisis and meet the needs of local communities. This marks the first time an independent, global assessment acknowledges that farming has a diversity of environmental and social functions and that nations and peoples have the right to democratically determine their best food and agricultural policies.”
PAN-Recommended Grants Helped the Process
With respect to the IAASTD process, PAN received Greengrants support for three grantees: the Agenda for Environment and Responsible Development, the Organisation Beninoise pour la Promotion de l’Agriculture Biologique, and the Red de Accion en Agricultura Alternativa.
The Agenda for Environment and Responsible Development (AGENDA) works in conjunction with community organizations, NGOs and government agencies to review policies, legal and institutional frameworks, and business practices to enable the private sector to better manage the natural resources of Tanzania. Greengrants supported sending representatives of AGENDA to the final Intergovernmental Plenary of the IAASTD to ensure that there was strong civil society representation and to make sure that the Final Summary for Decision Makers adequately represented the concerns and issues of Tanzania, especially those of small farmers and rural communities. Additionally, AGENDA took advantage of the meeting to network and strategize with other NGOs and community groups. Since 2003, AGENDA has received five Greengrants grants, totaling $15,100
The Organisation Beninoise pour la Promotion de l’Agriculture Biologique (OBEPAB) (Benin Organization for the Promotion of Biological Agriculture) promotes the development of organic agriculture in Benin and develops alternatives to synthetic pesticides and chemical fertilizers. To promote organic agriculture, OBEPAB raises awareness of decision makers and politicians in order to intervene on environmental issues related to the intensive use of modern technologies. With Greengrants’ help, OBEPAD sent a representative to participate in a January 2008 meeting of IAASTD in Nairobi. The representative participated as part of the panel of “Lead Authors and Reviewers of the Africa Regional Report”. This meeting also allowed for alliance building and networking opportunities among Asian, African and Latin American NGOs.
Since 2002, OBEPAB has received three Greengrants grants, totaling $9,900
The Red de Accion en Agricultura Alternativa (RAAA) (Alternative Agriculture Action Network) encourages the use of ecologically sustainable farming techniques in order to reduce the use of agrochemicals and guarantee food safety throughout Peru. As with OBEPAB, Greengrants funds were used to send a representative of RAAA to participate in the Nairobi meeting and participate on the panel of the report’s lead authors and reviewers. Since 2004, RAAA has received five grants, totaling $12,820
Strategies for the Future
This success is one among many for PAN’s network of community-based organizations and activists, and this success is by no means their last. The next step for PAN will be to strategize ways in which it can best support those organizations to build awareness about the IAASTD report and to utilize it as a tool to continue to affect both grassroots and global changes.
For civil society’s statement on the IAASTD report and for more information about Pesticide Action Network, please visit their website.
Click here to view the IAASTD report itself.