Video of our webinar “The next chapter in the struggle for UNDROP: learning about the new UN Working Group”
For the International Day of Peasant’s Struggles on April 17, Defending Peasants’ Rights and La Via Campesina held a webinar on the UN Human Rights Council’s Working Group on UNDROP, with three of its experts: Shalmali Guttal, Carlos Duarte and Geneviève Savigny.
The UNDROP Working Group was created by a resolution of the Human Rights Council in October 2023, and the experts were elected at the following session of the Council in April 2024. The aim of the webinar was to make this new tool in the fight for the implementation of UNDROP accessible to all rights holders, as well as to all those defending the rights of peasants. You can find here a fact sheet explaining the role of the Working Group.
Webinar program
The webinar was organized in three parts: an explanatory introduction to the Working Group, a long discussion with the three Group experts present, and an opening on the prospects offered by the Working Group for La Via Campesina.
The explanatory introduction was led first by Raffaele Morgantini from Cetim, he went back over the creation of the Working Group and the reasons why La Via Campesina worked to have it created as soon as UNDROP was adopted in 2018. Sibylle Dirren from Fian International then took the floor to present the functioning, role and prerogatives of the Working Group.
Christophe Golay of the Geneva Academy moderated the discussion with the three Working Group experts: Shalmali Guttal, Carlos Duarte and Geneviève Savigny. After asking each of them to introduce themselves, he asked them how they saw their role in promoting and defending UNDROP in the current context of agriculture controlled by aggressive agribusiness, how they saw the Working Group’s relations with rights holders, and what obstacles and solutions they perceived. The three experts expressed their determination to use all the means at the Working Group’s disposal to work with and for peasants and rural communities, and to combat violations of their rights.
Zainal Arafin Fuad of SPI Indonesia explained on behalf of La Via Campesina how the Working Group integrates with La Via Campesina’s actions to defend and implement peasants’ rights. Coline Hubert, editor of Defending Peasants’ Rights, then took the floor to explain how the creation of the Working Group opens up new perspectives for the site.
Finally, a video by Morgan Ody concluded the webinar. In the video, she hails the creation of the Working Group as a victory for the implementation of UNDROP, and calls on everyone to take hold of the rights contained in the Declaration.
