Brief information on RIA and SRIAs recommended by IFAD selection committee
1. The grant recipient and regional implementing agency: the consortium of LVC – AFA
A consortium is formed by LVC and AFA as grant recipient and therefore regional implementing agency; AFA is proposed to lead the consortium for RIA and considered as grant recipient by IFAD.
The Asian Farmers’ Association for Sustainable Rural Development (AFA) is a regional alliance of peasant federations and organizations in twelve Asian countries established in May 2002, and currently with 11 million farmer members. It envisions Asian rural communities that are free from hunger and poverty, are happy and in good health, and that live in peace and prosperity; where farmers, both men and women, own or have access and control over the lands they till, nurture through appropriate, integrated and environment-friendly agricultural practices and technologies, get far market for their products, have control over their goods and services, are self-reliant, educated and able to participate in development processes thorough politically strong, socially responsive, culturally sensitive and economically viable organizations.
AFA has been working closely and is pursuing registration with ASEAN, UN and other relevant bodies. It has long-established effective, efficient staffing, and organizational and information management systems, including data base and profiling systems. It has gained its sound experiences and capacities in project managements and fund administration during the last 10 years while collaborating with donors and other partners in implementing development projects related to farmers and their organizations.
AFA currently has three major programs namely, regional policy advocacy, sustainable agri-enterprise development and Knowledge management. Capacity building is a cutting-across concern for all the three programs catering to concerns of both men, women and young farmers in 10 countries in three sub-regions (southeast Asia, South Asia and Northeast Asia). As a regional federation most of the projects managed by AFA have regional and national components.
La Via Campesina is the international movement which brings together millions of peasants, small and medium-size farmers, landless people, women farmers, indigenous people, migrants and agricultural workers from around the world. It defends small-scale sustainable agriculture as a way to promote social justice and dignity. It strongly opposes corporate driven agriculture and transnational companies that are destroying people and nature.
It is currently based in Indonesia (2004 – Now) with Chair Person of SPI – Indonesian Peasant Union, namely Henry Saragih as International Coordinator of La Via Campesina
La Via Campesina comprises about 150 local and national organizations in 70 countries from Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. Altogether, it represents about 200 million farmers. It is an autonomous, pluralist and multicultural movement, independent from any political, economic or other type of affiliation.
La Via Campesina is a grassroots mass movement whose vitality and legitimacy comes from farmers’ organizations at local and national level. The movement is based on the decentralization of power between 9 regions. The coordination among the regions is taken up by the International Coordinating Committee which is composed of one woman and one man for every region, elected by the member organizations in the respective regions. The international secretariat rotates according to the collective decision made every four years by the International Conference. It was first in Belgium (1993-1996), then in Honduras (1997-2004) and it is currently based in Indonesia ( 2004 – Now) with Chair Person of SPI – Indonesian Peasant Union.
2. The sub-regional implementing agency (SRIA) for South Asia – ANFPa consortium
All Nepal Peasants’ Federation (ANPFa) is an umbrella association of entire Nepali peasants fighting for the genuine agrarian reform and peasants rights for last 6 decades since its inception in 1951 AD. In the new context of democratic republic of Nepal, ANPFa has re-structured its organization to form commodity and community based associations. Thus, it is an alliance of 23 national level commodity producers’ organizations. It’s a membership based mass organization extending over all 5 development regions, 14 zones and 75 districts of Nepal with almost a million members.
ANPFa brings relevant partners for program implementation: being member of SAAPE and Food Sovereignty Network, South Asia (SAARC as regional entity can play major role in fund provisioning). Consortium Partners: ANPFa, lead org in association with India- BKU, APPVU, SEWA, IMSE-FOs, Bangladesh- BKF and BALF, Sri Lanka- MONLAR and NAFSO.
3. The sub-regional implementing agency (SRIA) for Southeast Asia – the consortium of AFA-LVC
A consortium is formed by AFA and LVC as sub-regional implementing agency for Southeast Asia; LVC is proposed to lead the consortium for SRIA (See details above on RIA)
4. The sub-regional implementing agency (SRIA) for South Asia – PIFON
The Pacific Island Farmer Organisation Network (PIFON) was created in Nomvember 2011 and it serves as an umbrella organisation for national Farmer Organisation’s (FOs) to coordinate capacity building, share success stories and the lessons learnt, support regional exchanges of expertise between FOs and their associated private sector and donor agency partners. It was established as a regional body by 18 foundation national FOs from 6 Islands countries in the Pacific in response to the need of regional networking and practical technical assistance to the member farmers. The PIFON was created in November 2011 and it is undergoing the process of registering itself as a company limited by guarantee for not-for-profit mission in order to take advantages of giving more accountability to the members, and more procedural and cost efficiency for such organizational form.