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Poverty Eradication by Strengthening Struggles for Peace, Justice and Food Sovereignty in South Asia South Asia Alliance for Poverty Eradication 29-30 July, Hotel Himalaya, Lalitpur, Nepal

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Concept note

The South Asian region has 23 per cent of the world's population and 43 percent of the world's absolute poor and undernourished people with low life expectancy, low literacy rate and higher degree of gender inequality. The region features a rich diversity of geopolitics, societies, cultures, traditions and human potentials. However, fundamentalism propelled violence, economic exploitation; inequalities on the grounds of caste, ethnicity and gender are common characteristics. A majority of the resource poor and the marginalized are deprived of access to political decision-making, natural resource harnessing and human development leading to conflict and violence. Injustice prevails in this part of the world and people across South Asia are fighting against injustice in the form of exclusion, marginalization, improper distribution of resources and participation in power and policy related matters. As a result, armed insurgencies in various pretexts are also common to South Asian societies, which are partly attributed to above causes.

The major underlying causes of poverty are exclusion, gender discrimination and patriarchy, ineffective governance, corporate globalization, emergencies/disasters, deprivation of entitlements that obstructs people from social, economic and political opportunities, and non-economic aspects - powerlessness and exclusion.

Some of the conflicts in South Asia began as localised movements with specific demands linked either to denial of justice or aspirations of the communities and took into larger scale movements later on.

South Asia is clearly in need of multiple peace processes that inculcate just and sustainable solutions. Several such peace initiatives are deadlocked and remain concentrated in the hands of the state power players where civil society should also have been stakeholders. Women are sadly excluded from almost all peace processes. There is a long agenda that states have to ensure peace with justice for all communities - especially the minorities that are systematically excluded so far. States of South Asia have to accept that people's security needs to be ensured. Thus, they have to devise the national security framework and engage more with people's issues, protecting and empowering those who are excluded, marginalized, and especially those who have been traumatized by conflict.

Civil society groups across South Asia have actively engaged in mobilizing for peace based on justice. For example, in Sri Lanka, peace groups and women's groups have a civil society framework that intervenes with the demand of a just peace. In Nepal, civil society actors came out on the streets for human rights, democracy and peace. In India and Pakistan, groups have formed collective forums for peace and democracy. It is, thus clear that civil societies in South Asia are looking for consolidated regional peace initiatives, where governments have moved much slower than the needs of the hour.

Peace is defined as a state of absence of war or violence. However, if an oppressive society lacks violence, the society is nonetheless not peaceful, because of the injustice of the oppression. Peace, in which justice is an inherent and necessary aspect; requires not only the absence of violence but also the presence of justice. Thus, it should be understood that if there exists unjust system, deprivation or exclusion of certain class or group of people, and there is absence of justice, it cannot be considered as peace but a mechanism for structural violence. Justice is a concept involving the fair, moral, and impartial treatment of all persons.

The situations of hunger and food insecurity that several people are continuously experiencing in the region are the consequences of unjust distribution of productive resources. In a bid to overcome hunger and ensure food security, the people and civil societies around the world are struggling to re-establish their sovereign rights to food. Food sovereignty is the right of people to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. It puts those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations.

Thus, struggle for Food Sovereignty is another issue that is most relevant to South Asian context. The blanket approach of globalization under the disguise of market economy has challenged the food sovereignty of smaller countries and developing economies. The effects of globalization promoting commercialization have now affected small farmers from producing as per their necessity and will. Access to nutritious food in the home market as well has become much more difficult with the nations accessing to WTO.

In this backdrop, the South Asia Alliance for Poverty Eradication (SAAPE) is going to organise its 2007 AGM in the theme of "Poverty Eradication by Strengthening Struggles for Peace, Justice and Food Sovereignty in South Asia". The objectives of this AGM are; to share the experiences of the struggles taking place in individual countries and societies focusing on the AGM theme; to discuss SAAPE's annual performance and plan strategies for a year ahead; and to consolidate people's struggles for peace, justice and food sovereignty contributing to poverty eradication. The two day programme will be divided into panel discussions, thematic workshops, plenary sessions and group works (detail programme will be circulated later). The participants of the AGM are expected to participate actively in all events and contribute meaningfully to the AGM theme. The total number of the AGM participants is expected in the range of 40-60, representing all thematic groups from each SAAPE country. There are some other specific events planned before and after the AGM (the details will follow soon).