In this section, you will find international projects, programmes and partnership initiatives aimed to implement the recommendations made at the ICARRD Conference in Porto Alegre.

A Working Group, integrated by FAO, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and civil society organizations grouped around the International Planning Committee (IPC) was established in July 2006 to follow up on the ICARRD recommendations.

The Working Group (WG) is the result of a fruitful collaboration of these three entities during the ICARRD preparation process. The aim of this follow up group is to help implementing the principles and actions recommended at ICARRD in a coordinated and integrated manner.

Three meetings have already taken place in July, August and September 2006. A fourth meeting has been scheduled on Tuesday 3rd October 2006 at FAO. To know more on the items discussed read the minutes of the First, Second and Third IWG meetings.

During these meetings, the participants identified some challenges and common areas of interest:

• the need for disseminating the results of the ICARRD Conference and the Civil Society Parallel Forum. To this respect, the IPC emphasized the importance of informing their constituencies in order to strengthen the capacity of local communities for influencing agrarian reform and rural development policies at national level. FAO, on its side, announced the revitalization of the ICARRD website as a major tool for dissemination information and exchange of views and proposals.

• the need for developing new policy initiatives based on ICARRD principles. FAO agreed to support the development a People-Oriented Agrarian Reform concept paper for discussion.

• the need for lobbying and influencing governments, both in the North and South, to implement ICARRD principles. The set-up of a Special Initiative on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development was agreed and a proposal by FAO is in preparation.

• the need for monitoring systems in the implementation of the ICARRD principles. FIAN, one of the organizations grouped around IPC, offered its experience on the preparation and adoption of Voluntary Guidelines on the Right to Food, to make proposals for developing a set of reporting guidelines to monitor the implementation of ICARRD declaration by national states.

• the need for facilitating and promoting national dialogue platform on ICARRD follow-up.  Possible initiatives in various countries of Latin America countries are currently being evaluated by IFAD and FAO. 

• the need for funding all these initiatives. All three participating organizations will look for additional funding and will report to the IWG in future meetings.

The discussion also covered synergies in thematic areas of work, such as forestry, fisheries, gender and participatory approaches. 

FAO will play a leading role in the implementation of the ICARRD principles, as stated in the Conference Declaration signed by 92 countries.

To this end, the FAO’s Committee on World Food Security (CFS), whose 32nd Session will take place October 2006 and the FAO Council, one month later, will discuss appropriate measures for the implementation of the ICARRD principles at national, regional and international level.