Access to policy making processes: opportunities for farmers’ and rural producers’ organisations to exert power in favour of family agriculture

Issues for thematic working group

We have reached the mid-point on our way to 2015. Despite impressive progress in the reduction of income poverty in Asia, many regions of the world are not on track to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Hunger persists and inequality is rising.

Poverty still remains overwhelmingly a rural phenomenon since three of every four people in developing countries live in rural areas – 2.1 billion living on less than USD 2 a day and 880 million on less that a USD 1 a day.

Challenges such as better access to natural resources, to services and markets continue to constrain poor rural women and men in developing while new threats such as global warming, fossile fuel scarcity, erosion of biodiversity are becoming central issues for the livelihoods of the rural poor.  

Policy making processes and policy debates on the above issues rarely involve poor rural people and their organisations, and are thus developed without their perspectives, requirements and aspirations. At the same time, poor rural people and their organisations often lack the capabilities to engage with these processes.

Strengthening the organizations of poor rural people, to enable them to engage more effectively in local and national policy and budgetary processes for agricultural and rural development, and to hold government authorities accountable for their actions, is critical for ensuring that policies and programmes respond to their interests and requirements. Opening up fora, institutional space to promote dialogue between interests groups – including the organisations of the rural poor – and public authorities must be supported. Indeed IFAD’s Strategic Framework 2007-2010 focuses on these factors, by aiming to ensure that, at the national level, poor rural men and women have better and sustainable access to, and have developed the skills and organization they require to take advantage of local and national policy and programming processes, in which they participate effectively.

These are not abstract concerns. In most developing countries Poverty Reduction strategy Papers (PRSPs) or their equivalents now provide a framework for poverty reduction. The processes for their development, and those of their constituent sector policies and strategies, typically offer space for civil society representation: the issue is to ensure that the representatives of poor rural people are at the table. Equally, many developing countries are engaging in decentralization processes. Yet the evidence suggests that there is nothing about decentralization that is automatically pro-poor; indeed the contrary may be true, as local elites take the centre stage. Their power must be balanced to the extent possible by helping the rural poor to have a louder voice in local policy and budgetary processes and to hold local governments accountable for their actions.

There are promising cases where the organisations of poor rural women and men are becoming stakeholders exerting influence on policy processes. At the national level, for example, the formulation of National Agriculture Laws (Loi d’Orientation Agricole) in Senegal and Mali was deeply influenced by consultations with, and inputs from, national FO apex organisations. At regional level, processes of dialogue on family agriculture between governments and organisations of poor rural people are occurring. This is, for  example, the case of the REAF process (Specialized Meeting on Family Agricultura - Reunión Especializada sobre la Agricultura Familiar) in Latin America Southern Cone Common Market (MERCOSUR).

However, the capacity of the organisations of the rural poor to exert influence and be catalytic in promoting pro-poor policies is still fragile. Even in the most promising cases, such involvement is limited to the formulation phase and does not extend to policy implementation, monitoring, review and evaluation. On their part, States are still failing to recognise the importance of opening up policy processes to farmers’ organisations and providing fora to enable dialogue amongst stakeholders.

Questions to guide the working group discussion

On the basis of presentations of  examples of FO engagement, as full stakeholders, with policy processes at the national and regional levels, participants in this working group might consider the following issues:  

• What kind of support is needed to enable FOs to become influential stakeholders for the entire cycle of policy processes? What kind of support is needed to national, government authorities to promote institutionalised space for dialogue amongst stakeholders?
• How can IFAD be a supportive partner to: (a) promoting open policy processes and institutionalised spaces for dialogue; and (b) supporting the effective involvement of FOs in those policy processes?
• How can we ensure that open policy processes and strengthened involvement on the part of organisations of the rural poor impact positively the livelihoods of poor rural women and men?