Reasearch Brief: The Right to Seeds in Africa

This research brief is a publication by the Geneva Academy, you can find it on its website here.

This Researche Brief is the summary of a longer publication on The Right to Seeds in Africa, you can find it on our website here.

The implementation of UNDROP represents a unique opportunity to redress the imbalance between, on the one hand, the lack of support for peasant seed systems worldwide, including in Africa; and, on the other, the massive support for commercial seed systems. This is essential for the protection of the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of peasants. It is also in the interest of all, to ensure the rights to food and food sovereignty, preserve crop biodiversity, and tackle climate change.
In 2018, the great majority of African countries voted in favour of adopting UNDROP, which is based on binding international human rights treaties. In accordance with the need to apply international instruments adopted by the UN General Assembly in good faith, and to give priority to human rights norms in international and national laws, reflected in UNDROP Articles 2.4, 15.5 and 19.8, the African Union (AU) and African states shall ensure that their regional and national laws and policies, as well as the international agreements to which they are party, do not lead to the violation but, on the contrary, to a better protection of the rights of peasants, including their right to seeds.