The Popular Coalition to Eradicate Hunger and Poverty

What is the Popular Coalition?

The Popular Coalition is a consortium for action, a strategic alliance of intergovernmental and civil-society organizations which have combined their knowledge, skills, concrete experience and resources for the purpose of reaching a single objective: to build upon the dynamism and potential of the civil-society organizations themselves to eradicate hunger and poverty. It has its genesis in the Conference on Hunger and Poverty, held in Brussels, Belgium, on 20 and 21 November 1995.

The partners in the Coalition are committed to identifying novel ways of working together: communications, joint planning, consensus-building, collective decision-making and the implementation of agreed activities. Work evolves gradually through consecutive phases, starting as and when necessary, with pilot and experimental programmes.

Based on a participatory and decentralized work ethic, the Coalition initiates and supports practical, community-based activities in five areas:

• capacity-building of civil-society organizations at the local and community levels; 
• devising strategies to build public awareness of civil-society initiatives and create political will in the South and North in order to foster policy reform and civil-society initiatives;
• developing strategies of collaboration for emergency preparedness, prevention, rehabilitation and reconstruction in pilot countries, in relation to both natural and mad-made calamities; 
• ensuring the early implementation of the Convention to Combat Desertification, with special focus on urgent action in Africa; and
• establishing knowledge networks to collect and disseminate the experience and knowledge of civil-society organizations and to identify promising initiatives for scaling-up and replication.

The Coalition's Focus

Increased access by the poor to productive resources, especially land and water, is an essential condition for improving living standards and social stability in rural areas. As such, the Coalition gives first priority to the revival of land reform on national and international agendas and, in responding to this challenge from a new perspective, builds upon the experience, knowledge and potential of civil-society organizations.

Founding Partners of the Coalition

American Council for Voluntary International Action/Bread for the World

Asian NGO Coalition for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development - ANGOC

Asociación Latinoamericana de Organizaciones de Promoción - ALOP

Caribbean Network for Integrated Rural Development - CNIRD

Deutsche Welthungerhilfe

Environmental Liaison Centre International - ELCI

European Commission (Directorate General VIII) - EC

Food and Agriculture Organization - FAO

Forum for African Voluntary Development Organizations - FAVDO

International Federation of Agricultural Producers - IFAP

International Fund for Agricultural Development - IFAD

Partners in Rural Development

Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies and Institutions - SRISTI

World Food Programme - WFP

World Bank - WB

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Land and Agrarian Reform for Poverty Eradication

The Problem

Information received from the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) shows that, in 1985, there were as many as 817 million smallholder and landless labourers in Africa, Asia and Latin America whereas IFAD estimates that, in the mid-1980s, there were 324 million totally landless rural people in 64 developing countries. Small farmers, tenants and landless workers are among the social groups most vulnerable to poverty and hunger.

Need for Land Reforms

It is now widely recognized that land reforms to provide greater access on the part of the poor to productive resources, especially land, are crucial to the eradication of poverty. Such improved access can reduce rural conflicts, lead to social justice and equity, and help increase smallholder productivity and income. Tenurial security can also lead to land improvements and sustainable resource-use practices.

Past Experience

Despite their potential, land reform programmes have not been very successful to date. Political and economic difficulties associated with such programmes have proved to be formidable. Past failures, however, relate more to government-led reforms which were often characterized by highly centralized approaches, lack of strong political commitment and limited opportunities for peasant participation. Such failures, moreover, have not meant a lack of local-level action. Indeed, there have been – and will continue to be - organized movements by rural producers and marginalized groups to acquire or maintain access to essential productive resources. Unfortunately, such popular initiatives are poorly documented and analysed. Village communities attempting to tackle a particular problem have little access to the experience of other communities, even those nearby, which have perhaps addressed and overcome similar problems. Thus, invaluable knowledge and experience remain totally localized and fail to attain their full potential and relevance.

What is needed, then, is a mechanism to collect, analyse and disseminate the valuable experience and initiatives of civil society to safeguard or enhance the access of the poor to resources. In this way, civil- society organizations can gain from collaborating with international organizations and networking among themselves. This is where the Knowledge Network for Land Reform and Tenurial Security comes in.

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The Knowledge Network for Land Reform and Tenurial Security

The Goal

The goal of the Knowledge Network is "to contribute to poverty alleviation and progressive social development through the improvement in the terms of access to productive resources, especially land, for the most deprived groups of the population". Particular emphasis is placed on safeguarding the rights of women and indigenous populations. To this end, the Network collects, assesses and disseminates information on civil-society initiatives in land and agrarian reform.

What Kinds of Initiatives?

The Network focuses on civil society in a number of interrelated areas:

• land redistribution
• land extension
• land reclamation
• formalization of land rights and entitlements
• the protection of access to common property resources
• land titling clarifications
• conflict resolutions
• policy dialogue

How Does it Work?

• The Network covers 23 countries in seven major subregions (Southeast Asia, South Asia, Near East and North Africa, the South African Development Community (SADC), and East, Central and West Africa, South America, and Central America and the Caribbean).
• Each group of countries has one regional node and, in each country, one institution acts as the focal point.
• National institutions collect information from as many local groups as possible, conduct a preliminary screening and synthesize the information for dissemination among other national entities and to their regional nodes.
• These regional nodes further review and analyse the information for subsequent dissemination to other regional nodes and relevant institutions throughout the world.
• The most successful practices, policies and innovative institutional arrangements are shared among all partners in the Network, using various means of communication within the access of local people.

Examples from the Field

• Action Malienne pour le Développement Intégré (AMADI), Mali, groups peasant producers into Local Development Committees which are responsible for training their members in land acquisition procedures and conflict management strategies. Fundanción Nacional para el Desarrollo (FUNDE), El Salvador, tackles issues such as land transfers or cancellations of agrarian debt through the use of local radio and television networks and by mobilizing and training peasant groups.
• Acción Campesina, Venezuela, uses a wide range of media and audio-visual tools to train peasant leaders in agrarian law, project design and implementation and the formulation of agrarian policies. Negotiations are under way with the National Agrarian Institute regarding agrarian reform measures, with Acción Campesina acting as a key interlocutor in policy dialogue.
• Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais sem Terra (MST), Brazil, has been lobbying for radical change in land ownership patterns. It has mobilized a large numbers of small farmers and agricultural labourers and provided them with technical assistance and services ranging from credit to basic education and training.
• Coordinación de ONG y Cooperativas (CONGCOOP), Guatemala, has, since 1992, brought together 27 national NGOs and cooperatives to press for radical land reform measures and improved agrarian support services.