Give people the right to food! Here are the tips for the electoral winners in the four bourgeois parties.
(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
This is a contribution to the «Engaged utterance» column in the weekly magazine Ny Tid, in print 27.09.2013. In the column come various idealistic organizations are speaking. The participants are: ATTAC Norway, Nature and Youth, Agenda X, Skeiv Ungdom, Changemaker, One World, The Future in Our Hands, Bellona, the Joint Council for Africa, the Norwegian Society for Nature Conservation, MSF and NOAH – for animal rights.
Dish. The Development Fund wishes the bourgeois majority good luck with its efforts to establish a viable government. We observe that all parties through the election campaign signaled that human rights are decisive for Norway's international positions.
The right to food is just such a human right, and the Development Fund is particularly concerned with poverty reduction – with food security and ecological sustainability as the main element.
As a starting point for our input, we refer to the main conclusion of the World Bank's World Development Report 2008, which states that growth coming through agriculture is more than four times as effective in generating more income for poor people than GDP growth outside the agricultural sector.
Therefore, we have the following specific proposals to the negotiating committee:
1) Increased Norwegian investment in economic growth through climate-adapted agricultural development:
We need to step up support for sustainable, climate-resilient agricultural development to 10 percent of total aid over four years.
2) Market access for small farmers:
In order for poor small farmers to achieve development, they depend on market access and good prices for their products. This is ensured, among other things, by strengthening the organization of farmers locally, forming cooperatives run and owned by farmers themselves, and by providing farmers with the necessary knowledge to produce goods that can be traded locally and possibly internationally. We hope that the new government will support agricultural assistance that looks at the entire value chain for poor small farmers.
3) Continued Norwegian investment in Latin America:
Most Norwegian organizations and Norwegian embassies collaborate with local partners on all continents. Many of these are in so-called middle-income countries. Much of this is done in a political context where external support is crucial for maintaining development policy processes, which are important from a poverty, distribution, rights and environmental perspective. Some of the best development work Norwegian organizations are involved in is conducted in countries such as Nicaragua and Guatemala – countries with major poverty challenges and enormous social disparities.
4) Continued focus on information and debate through information support:
In the election campaign, there has been talk of a possible decline in information support through the organizations. In our opinion, this will be a step in the wrong direction. Norwegian organizations contribute to a much broader development policy debate in Norway. If the new government builds this down, we will lose a vital arena for a living exchange of words about Norwegian interests and obligations in a globalized world. We are becoming a poorer country on the idea and thinking side. It also loses land out there.
5) The level of assistance is maintained:
Norway provides 1 per cent of GDP for international solidarity and development efforts. Given our resources, our tradition, but most of all the challenge we see outside the country's borders, especially on the environment and food production side, it will be wrong for Norway to go below this percentage target.
If the negotiating committee follows our recommendations, they will experience a richer result, especially out there, but also here at home.
It tastes good to be solid and it adds value
(This is an excerpt from Ny Tid's weekly magazine 27.09.2013. Read the whole thing by buying Ny Tid in newspaper retailers all over the country, or by subscribing to Ny Tid -click here. Subscribers receive previous editions free of charge as PDF.)
