- Home
- Media
- News
- GNRTFN renews vow to defend people’s right to food, eyes widening engagement with youth groups
GNRTFN renews vow to defend people’s right to food, eyes widening engagement with youth groups
The Global Network for the Right to Food and Nutrition (GNRTFN) has reaffirmed its commitment to continue being the watchdog for governments and non-state actors that impose measures and take actions preventing people from accessing adequate food and nourishing themselves.
Amid the raging Covid-19 pandemic that puts a spotlight on failing and repressive food systems that cause and exacerbate hunger and environmental degradation, around 40 GNRTFN members and supporters gathered virtually on July 1 and 2 and united their efforts in assessing the organization’s work and how this could be further strengthened to respond to the challenges of the times.
“The Global Network is a platform where we can still gather together…even though the power of physically gathering together has been taken away from us by Covid,” said Frances Davies, the coordinator of the Zambia Alliance for Agroecology and Biodiversity, among the network’s 56 member-organizations.
“The GNRTN still brings people together across the board…It is a holding space for all of us, who regard the right to food and nutrition as our overarching goal,” added Davies.
During the virtual meet, which was the network’s sixth global assembly, members reviewed the GNRTFN’s May 2019 Jakarta Declaration and saw that many challenges identified during the time remain unchanged. These include the reign of right-wing governments across the globe; corporate takeover of food governance spaces; the denial of peoples’ self-determination to cultivate, trade, and consume their own food; and the ever-intensifying climate and ecological crisis.
Moreover, GNRTFN members critically evaluated the network’s achievements since it was founded in June 2013 that was followed by robust dialogues to identify opportunities.
Towards the end of the meet, members reached a consensus on the need to bring people’s hunger solutions to the fore and widen the network’s engagement with youth groups across the globe as they will be the ones who will carry the right to food and nutrition campaign forward.
“This global meeting has re-energized social movements at this time when we all feel disoriented. It has demonstrated that we have a platform to use to be back together,” said Margaret Nakato, executive director of the World Forum of Fish Harvesters and Fish Workers, another member-organization of the GNRTFN, which for the last eight years has committed itself to advancing the full realization of the human right to adequate food and nutrition within the frameworks of food sovereignty and people’s sovereignty.
“And we can move forward as social movements despite the circumstances. The Network is about all of us working together for a goal that is serving all of us,” concluded Nakato.