Land and Water Convergence at the World Social Forum

During the World Social Form, held from 24–28 March 2015, in Tunisia, Habitat International Coalition joined together with the social movements and other organizations promoting the 2014 Dakar Declaration “Rights to Water and Land, a Common Struggle.” The Space of the Global Convergence of Land and Water Struggles aimed to share grassroots experiences and uniting struggles on issues of land and water, including peasants, fisherfolk, pastoralists, consumers, urban communities and slum dwellers, public water movements, otherNGOs from rural to urban, in the North and the South.

This space held joint sessions in the mornings of 25–27March and an assembly of convergence on 28 March to share experiences of water and land struggles at national and international levels, and to discuss how to move forward. HIC Members and officers sharedexperiences in global human rights work, as well as on-the-ground cases in the struggles for land and water. Included in the convergence were HIC events on the Expectations for Habitat III and the follow-up to the recent MENA Land Forum. The events served as a platform to discuss common struggles and challenges, and strategizing moving forward.

The Dakar Declaration on Water and Land Grabbing was originally an output of the African Social Forum, held in October 2014,at Dakar, Senegal. The African continent has experienced an incredible level of land grabbing, and this declaration emerged at a time when private firms, speculators and governmentshave grabbed some 200 million hectares of land globally, often with support from regional development banks and financial alliances, including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the G8, among others. Land grabs also mean grabbing precious water resources that nourish the lands, soils, coasts and people. We have seen the rise and promotion of public-private partnerships that fail to include or address the needs of the affected communities, often disenfranchising communities and peoples, further pushing them into poverty and vulnerability. Thus, HIC has promoted the missing “P” in such arrangements, emphasizing the need for Popular partnership in all types of development.

Issues of land and water often are treated as separated, regulated under separate instruments, principles and laws. However, in fact, the rights to water, land and food are integrally linked, and it is necessary for all actors, including civil society, to better articulate this understanding. Without rights to water, land cannot be productive and the right to food cannot be fully realized.

The UN CESCR General Comment 15 on the right to water recognizes the importance of access to water for food production and food producers, stating that

“Attention should be given to ensuring that disadvantaged and marginalized farmers, including women farmers, have equitable access to water and water management systems, including sustainable rain harvesting and irrigation technology…States parties should ensure that there is adequate access to water for subsistence farming and for securing the livelihoods of indigenous peoples.”

As also affirmed in the Declaration of the International Forum on Agroecology, “We need to put the control of seeds, biodiversity, land and territories, waters, knowledge, culture and the commons in the hands of the peoples who feed the world.”

The final, revised declaration was presented on the final day of the Convergence and articulated the common points that unify our different struggles:

• That the human rights to water, food and land are fundamental, and crucial for life. All people, men, women, adults, children, rich, poor, rural and urban dwellers, are entitled to them.
• That water and land are not only vital natural resources, but are also part of our common heritage, whose security and governance must be preserved by each community for the common good of our societies and the environment, now and for future generations.
• Water, land and seeds are commons, and not commodities.
• We recognize that States are legally and constitutionally mandated to represent peoples` interests. States are, therefore, dutybound to oppose any policy and international treaty that undermines human rights and their own sovereignty, such as [through] Investor-State Dispute Settlement schemes as included in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and the majority of investment treaties.
• Land [and] water management policies should promote the achievement of social justice, gender equality, public health and environmental justice.
• We take a firm stand against foreign occupation and domination in all forms.

The Convergence Declaration calls on the international community, states and local authorities to take action on many issues. This includes fully recognizing the indivisibility of human rights and corresponding obligations, in and outside of their national borders extraterritorial obligations. In this regard, international organizations, states and other actors must uphold their obligations to not cooperate or transact with parties cooperating with illegal situations such as foreign occupation, denial of self-determination or terrorism. It is also critical that customary tenure be respected for all communities and that the principle of free, prior and informed consent always is respected in any project that affects natural resources.

The Convergence acknowledges that Committee on World Food Security should be the space in which issues of land and water should be discussed, as that is a space that enables a great deal of civil society articulation, via the Civil Society Mechanism, and is a space that civil society has fought to create and expand. The Convergence Declaration also outlines the instruments that the international community should use in understanding the natural resource rights of communities, including the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Land, Fisheries and Forests, the Guidelines for Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries, the ILO Convention 169 on the Rights of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, among others. It also calls for support of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and People Working in Rural Areas, currently under development in the UN Human Rights Council.

Follow-up meetings and initiativeswill take place based on this convergence, including a West African meeting during June 2015.

The final, revised declaration can be found here (in English).

Please continue to watch the HIC and HLRN websites and Land Timesfor updates.