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	State of Food and Agriculture 2017 - Leveraging food systems for inclusive rural transformation by UN Food and Agriculture Organization   Oct. 2017   Rural areas, too long seen as poverty traps, key to economic growth in developing countries. Sweeping transformations needed to unlock their potential to help feed and employ a younger, more crowded planet.   Millions of young people in developing countries who are poised to enter the labour force in the coming decades need not flee rural areas to escape poverty, argues a new FAO report.   Rural areas actually have vast potential for economic growth pegged to food production and related sectors, The State of Food and Agriculture 2017 says. And with the majority of the world''s poor and hungry living in these areas, achieving the 2030 development agenda will hinge on unlocking that oft-neglected potential, it adds.   Doing so will require overcoming a thorny combination of low productivity in subsistence agriculture, limited scope for industrialization in many places, and rapid population growth and urbanization — all of which pose challenges to developing nations'' capacity to feed and employ their citizens.   There is ample evidence that changes to rural economies can have major impacts. Transformations of rural economies have been credited with helping hundreds of millions of rural people lift themselves up out of poverty since the 1990s, the report notes.   However that progress has been patchy, and demographic growth is raising the stakes.   Between 2015 and 2030, the ranks of people aged 15-24 years are expected to rise by about 100 million, to 1.3 billion. Almost all that increase will take place in sub-Saharan Africa — the lion''s share of it in rural zones.   But in many developing countries — most notably in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa — growth in the industrial and service sectors has lagged, and they will not be able to absorb the massive numbers of new job seekers set to enter the workforce. Nor will agriculture — in its current form.   So rural people who relocate to cities will likely run a greater risk of joining the ranks of the urban poor, instead of finding a pathway out of poverty. Others will need to look for employment elsewhere, leading to seasonal — or permanent — migration.   This is why targeting policy support and investment to rural areas to build vibrant food systems and supporting agro-industries that are well connected to urban zones —especially small and medium size cities — will create employment and allow more people to stay, and thrive, in the countryside represents a strategic intervention, the report highlights.   Transformed rural economies won''t necessarily be a panacea that solves all the pressures that drive people to relocate, but they will generate much-needed jobs and contribute to making out-migration more of a choice, rather than a necessity.   "Too often ignored by policy-makers and planners, territorial networks of small cities and towns are important reference points for rural people — the places where they buy their seed, send their children to school and access medical care and other services," FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva notes in his forward to the report.   "Policy-makers are urged to recognize the catalytic role of small cities and towns in mediating the rural-urban nexus and providing smallholder farmers with greater opportunities to market their produce and share in the benefits of economic growth," he adds.   How urban food demand can spark rural renewal   The State of Food and Agriculture makes the case that needed transformations in rural economies can be sparked by leveraging growing demand for food in urban areas to diversify food systems and generate new economic opportunities in off-farm, agriculture-related activities.   This includes enterprises that process or refine, package or transport, and store, market or sell food, as well as businesses that supply production inputs such as seeds, tools and equipment, and fertilizers or provide irrigation, tilling or other services.   Already, growing demand coming from urban food markets currently consumes up to 70 percent of national food supplies, even in countries with large rural populations, the report notes.   But while urbanization provides a "golden opportunity" for agriculture, it also presents challenges for millions of small-scale family farmers.   Markets that are more profitable can lead to the concentration of food production in large commercial farms, to value chains dominated by large processors and retailers, and to the exclusion of smallholders.   So supportive public policies and investments will be key to harnessing urban demand as an engine for transformative and equitable growth, and measures designed to ensure market participation by small-scale, family-farmers must be hard-wired into policies.   The study lays out three lines for action:   The first involves putting in place a range of policies designed to ensure that small-scale producers are able to participate fully in meeting urban food demands. Measures to strengthen land tenure rights, ensure equity in supply contracts, or improve access to credit are but a few options.   The second is to build up the necessary infrastructure to connect rural areas and urban markets — in many developing countries the lack of rural roads, electrical power grids, storage facilities, and refrigerated transportation systems is a major bottleneck for farmers seeking to take advantage of urban demand for fresh fruit, vegetables, meat and dairy.   The third involves including not just mega-cities into well-connected rural-urban economies but knitting in smaller, more spread-out urban areas as well.   The report stresses that smaller urban centres represent a much overlooked market for food. Half of all urban dwellers in developing countries live in cities and towns of fewer than 500,000 people.   Key numbers   Rural transformation have been taking place since the 1990s; since then, an additional 750 million rural people now have incomes above the moderate poverty line of US$3.10 (PPP) per person per day.   In 1960, 22 percent of the population in developing countries (460 million people) lived in cities and towns. By 2015, that reached 49 percent (3 billion people).   The developing world''s rural population grew by 1.5 billion between 1960 (1.6 billion people) and 2015 (3.1 billion).   In South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, an average of 1 million and 2.2 million young people, respectively, entered the job market every year between 2010 and 2015.   Large cities with populations from 5-10 million and megacities of 10+ million inhabitants are represent only about 20 percent of the world''s urban dwellers.   In developing countries most urban areas are relatively small - about 50 percent of the total urban population, or 1.45 billion people, live in cities and towns of 500 000 inhabitants or fewer.   Close to half the global population today either lives in cities with fewer than 500 000 inhabitants or in rural areas surrounding them.   Globally, smaller urban areas currently account for about 60 percent of urban food demand. By 2030, the urban population in the world''s less-developed regions will total 4 billion. 80 percent of these urban dwellers will live in Africa, Asia and Latin America.   In 2030 the majority of the world''s urban population will be found in cities with populations of 1 million or less; 80 percent of these people will live in urban areas with fewer than 500 000 inhabitants.   The value of urban food markets in sub-Saharan Africa will likely increase fourfold between 2010 and 2030, from US$313 billion to US$1 trillion.   In East and Southern Africa, the share of urban consumers in the purchased food market is already 52 percent and is forecast to rise to 67 percent by 2040. Visit the related web page
	Global Movement promises to fight Inequality by ActionAid International, agencies   Civil society organizations from across Asia gathered in Manila for a meeting to discuss a global campaign against inequality.   Calling themselves the Fight Inequality Alliance, the group believes that a global movement is what it’s going to take to address and fight inequality, which has reached extreme proportions in this century, and has created devastating impacts on communities and countries, and on the climate.   ‘We cannot hope to end poverty and injustice without confronting the over concentration of wealth and power among the few. Inequality is part of the root cause of the many issues we face as people of Asia,’ said Lidy Nacpil, Coordinator, Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development (APMDD).   “Inequality is undermining the work against poverty, and given the scale of the challenge in tackling extreme inequality, it is only by bringing activists and organizations to work together can greater impact be achieved. There is an urgent need to address the structural causes of inequality through building a people-powered movement around the world,” added Lilian Mercado, Asia Regional Director of Oxfam International.   In its vision and mission statement, Fight Inequality Alliance (FIA) expounded on inequality’s various facets and expressions in societies and the different regions of the world, emphasizing how the “elite few” has access to and control of huge wealth, incomes, products and resources around the globe while the 99 percent tries to survive in precarious working and living conditions.   “Inequality has reached a crisis point around the world. That’s why this alliance is growing and building the power of the people to be stronger than the people with power. Together we must turn the tide against rising inequality,” said Jenny Ricks, Convenor of the Fight Inequality Alliance.   In 2016, an Oxfam study calculated that worldwide, 62 individuals had the same wealth as 3.6 billion people. The wealth of these 62 richest people rose by 45% since 2010 while the wealth of the 3.6 billion people, those comprising the bottom half of the population, dropped by just over a trillion dollars in the same period, a decline of 38%.   The average annual income of the poorest 10% of people in the world has risen by less than $3 each year in almost a quarter of a century. Their daily income has risen by less than a single cent every year. Since the turn of the century, the poorest half of the world’s population has received just 1% of the total increase in global wealth, while half of that increase has gone to the top 1%.   “There are wide gaps between macroeconomic indicators of economic growth, incomes, GDP and employment on the one hand, and actual conditions of wellbeing and poverty on the other hand. Even if macro figures show an increase in GDP growth and incomes, at the micro level, we still see increasing unemployment, worsening work conditions, the impoverishment of small farmers and producers, distress migration, and growing feminization of poverty,” explained Shalmali Guttal, Executive Director of Focus on the Global South, a regional organization based in Bangkok but with national advocacies in India, the Philippines, and the Mekong region.   Environmental catastrophes are also a manifestation of the massive inequality being faced globally. Climate science puts the accountability for climate change squarely on the excessive use of fossil fuels by the North starting from over a century ago.   In the last few years, climate change impacts ranging from extreme heat and prolonged dry seasons to more devastating storms and unprecedented volumes of rainfall bore down on the Philippines, Myanmar, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Vietnam, Cambodia, Lao PDR and other developing countries, aggravating hunger, job insecurity, and negatively impacting migration and peace and order in the region.   “It is our stark realization that winning our fight to save the environmental is something we cannot do without tackling root causes, without confronting the malaise of inequality,” said Yeb Saño, Executive Director of Greenpeace Southeast Asia.   Organizations at the forefront of the formation of this movement have been involved in various initiatives addressing poverty and other social-economic development issues but they see the urgency of coming together to face an enormous challenge, the biggest threat to “human development” and humanity itself.   At the international level, the lead groups in the alliance are ACT Alliance, ActionAid International; Civicus, Asian Peoples Movement on Debt and Development (APMDD); FEMNET; Focus on the Global South; Global Alliance for Tax Justice; Greenpeace; International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC); and Oxfam International. But it is the main strategy is to build upon the plans and actions crafted by national organizations in recognition of specific conditions and issues within countries and societies.   “Our organization has been doing various campaigns from when it was established in 1958, especially to achieve women empowerment and gender equality. But we can do better if we join others who have the same voice as us. In this way we can be stronger,” said Unique Lohani of the All Nepal Women’s Association.   Indonesia-based group Prakarsa has been working as well “to make our society better through improving access to and participation in the economic and political processes of our country, as well as social relations.   According to Ah Maftuchan, Prakarsa recognizes that “poverty in many countries have been reduced, but the poor are very slow in getting income increase because of rising inequality. We are keen about putting inequality as part of our advocacy. Our government is setting up programs to fight inequality but we need to advocate more to push it to address inequalities in education, health, income, social insurance, labor protection, among others.”   “A movement of national alliances is seen as the key driver of change and will be supported by regional and international solidarity and action to amplify it. The alliance will be a radical voice for transformational social and economic alternatives,” the FIA statement said.   Jan. 2017   We need a new social movement against Inequality, by Dr Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah, Secretary General of CIVICUS.   Oxfam’s latest estimate that just eight super-rich people – down from 62 last year and 388 just six years ago – own more wealth than the poorest half of the world population is a clarion call to change the way we think about and try to tackle inequality.   Twenty years ago, as a young economics student, I was taught to look at the distribution of resources within and between nations. Most of the measures we looked at were averages: what is the average per capita income in a country; or what is the average rate of growth. Even when looking at inequality we used measures like the Gini coefficient that looked at distribution across a whole population. Oxfam’s work shows just how poor these standard economic measures have been at tracking what has really been going on when it comes to wealth.   The vastly unequal accumulation of wealth transcends national boundaries. While we spend a lot of time comparing the size of GDPs, it is now individuals, and not states, who are accumulating wealth in eye-watering quantities.   A little bit of inequality might be expected; indeed one could argue it a normal part of economic life in a market-based system. But the tragedy of the current economic order is not just the extreme levels of inequality but also the social attitudes that have normalized it.   There are those who argue that efforts to reduce inequality will stifle competition and constrain enterprise and growth. Greed is good, they say. Haven’t you heard about trickle-down economics? Well, I’ve heard and, along with a growing number of others, I’m not buying it.   Even the World Economic Forum’s own Global Risk Report cites severe income inequality as the single greatest threat to social and political stability around the world. Contemporary capitalism is creating deeply unstable growth.   The inequality it engenders is bad for humanity, not only in the sense that it is unjust, but in that it leads instrumentally to negative outcomes for society as a whole. It is a corrosive force, hampering our fight against poverty and sowing the seeds of social unrest.   The mandates of our governments are heavily, disproportionately, influenced by the priorities of this wealthy elite. The super-rich are rigging the rules of the game in their favour.   Governments are going to be neither able nor willing to tackle inequality until mass social mobilisation demands that they do so. We need to examine the attitudes and beliefs that perpetuate and increase inequality. We need to stop believing that what is happening now is normal, inevitable even. It’s not.   We need to make extreme personal wealth an unacceptable reality and its defenders, pariahs. What matters most in the fight against inequality is how we think. We need to establish new norms around inequality, wealth and poverty.   A growing number of civil society organisations, trade unions and faith groups have come together to form a new Fighting Inequality Alliance. Our aim is to build upon work already begun by grassroots movements such as Occupy to change social norms around wealth accumulation. Only a global peoples’ movement can begin to counterbalance the power and influence of the 1%. Only a growing tide of peaceful protest can challenge inequality as a global social norm and force governments to respond.   Until we achieve this change in attitude, governments will not fundamentally alter the way they manage our economies. We won’t see tax havens eliminated, or all workers receiving a living wage. We won’t see increased government spending on public services funded by more progressive tax systems. We won’t see more transparent policymaking or meaningful strengthening of financial regulations.   We need a new global economy that works for the majority. But until the majority stand up and make themselves heard – until their influence overwhelms that of the wealthy elite – we will not achieve it.   http://www.fightinequality.org/ Visit the related web page
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