Communicating the climate smart GMP to stakeholder

The purpose of this block is to raise the awareness of stakeholders on the climate smart GMP through communication by means adapted especially to the realities of the park area. The media to use depends on the level of intervention. For example, community radio and posters can be used to educate local people; online platforms are useful for a wide audience at the national and international level; and brochures are useful for visitors etc

Appropriate communication strategies that take into account the literacy levels, linguistic knowledge and other socio-cultural factors.

Early lessons learned include:

 

  1. Communicating the climate smart GMP ensures that stakeholders are aware of the climate change aspects and that their interest is generated and their commitment is secured to participate in the implementation and respect of the GMP as a Park Management tool.
  2. Communicating the climate change strategy will enable stakeholders to provide feedback, via mornitoring and evaluation, on the effective of the strategy in delivering the intended resilience objectives.
Developing a vision and a clear roadmap towards 100% organic

When starting these policies, mainstreaming of organic and agroecological farming in the whole state was seen as a strategy to preserve the ecosystem of the state and the health of its citizens. The government was (and still is) convinced that this decision would deliver huge socioeconomic benefits, would help young people stay on the land, and would attract local and foreign sustainable tourism, while opening opportunities to reach premium organic markets.

 

Political commitment to support organic farming in Sikkim began in 2003.  That year, the Chief Minister of Sikkim, H.E. Pawan Chamling, announced his vision for Sikkim to be India’s first organic state. In a historic declaration to the State Assembly in 2003, H.E. Chamling announced “a long awaited policy initiative of declaring Sikkim as a fully Organic State”. The 2003 declaration was accompanied by the creation of an action plan containing a variety of policy measures, including a gradual phase-out of synthetic inputs and the support for the production and use of organic fertilizers and organic seeds, coupled with capacity building for extension officers, farmers and young people.

Back in 2003, there was still no clear agreement on how to progress towards the goal of a fully organic state. To move forward with this objective, in 2004, the government came up with a working policy and in August 2010, it launched the Sikkim Organic Mission to implement the action plan and policies related to organic farming in the state, with the target of converting the entire state into an organic one by the year 2015.

The road map that clearly detailed all the measures necessary to achieve the target of becoming a fully organic state by 2015, was key, along with the setup of the Sikkim Organic Mission, to achieve the vision of Sikkim becoming the first 100% organic state in the world. The Sikkim Organic Mission – with its goal of becoming a fully organic state – is the first such far-sighted and visionary policy commitment by a state in India and indeed the world. By implementing this political strategy, Sikkim shows that it is taking all necessary measures to reverse the prevailing economic logic that favours forms of food production that fail to account for the contributions of nature. This action plan, together with its linked policies, is unique in its boldness. Remarkably, it allowed Sikkim to achieve its target of converting the entire state to organic agriculture by December 2015. This is the first time in history that a state set such an ambitious vision and also achieved it.

Ndiob’s Agriculture Development Programme

The community of Ndiob consists of 18 villages that were formed into 5 village groups of a certain area, which focused on one of the five collectively defined themes. The Agriculture Development Programme includes hence five themes:

 

  1. Agriculture, including infrastructure and agricultural equipment, seeds stocks, intensification and diversification of agroecology;
  2. Livestock breeding and farming, including cattle breeding, poultry food production for livestock;
  3. Soil fertility, including anti-erosion measures; desalination, composting;
  4. Management of natural resources, including improving the state of the valley and ponds, restoration of soil coverage, strengthening of local governance;
  5. Food security, including construction of processing and storage facilities for agricultural produce, improving nutrition projects, local bank for savings and micro-credits to support local agriculture, livestock and poultry breeding as well as the use of the ponds.

It was critical that Ndiob’s local Agricultural Development Programme of 2017 was designed in a particularly inclusive way and the people were involved in all phases of the programme, from the diagnosis/analysis to implementation. Main support came from the NGO ENDA PRONAT, that for a long time advocates for agroecology in West Africa, with other organizations and entities interested in support Ndiob's vision and work.

In 2018, two villages – Thiallé and Soumnane – of Ndiob decided to adopt agroecology as a way of life in different areas. They will be pilot villages and accompanied by the municipality and its partners such as FAO, INP and Elephant Vert. The aim is to build on the results and gained experiences of these two villages to further multiply activities to other villages of the municipality.

Developing a vision and a programme

Ndiob is the first municipality that launched the territorial approach to rural development in Senegal. In June 2014, a new municipal council had been installed, which formally defined and adopted its vision “to make Ndiob a green municipality, resilient through a process of economic and social development and welfare, inclusive and respectful for human rights, in particular towards vulnerable communities.” This orientation had been already defined by the municipal members during the election campaign and had then been also endorsed by the Green Party of Senegal.

 

To implement its vision, the municipality – led by a very engaged Mayor – was supported by the NGO ENDA PRONAT that is promoting agroecology in West Africa. ENDA PRONAT conducted a participatory analysis of community needs involving more than 1,000 local people and actors (50 percent were women). It carried out an evaluation of production systems and developed an Agricultural Development Programme, which was understood and accepted by the local community.

In response to the major problem of environmental degradation as a result of outdated cultivation methods and climate change (i.e. disappearance of pools, forests, pastures, decline of soil fertility, etc.), local people demanded better natural resources management and capacity-building to support the agroecological transition. In July 2017, the results of this analysis and the Agricultural Development Programme were presented to the whole community.

When presenting the Agricultural Development Programme to the whole community about 400 persons from all 18 villages of Ndiob participated. It was also very important that further partners such as the FAO, World Vision, National Agency for Agricultural and Rural Council (ANCAR) and University Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar (UCAD), who pledged to support certain aspects of this initiative, came to express their views. As well, supporters and friends of Ndiob formed the network CAPCOMMUN.

 

Moreover, to support the vision and programme the Network of Green Municipalities and Cities of Senegal (REVES) was founded, which is currently presided by the Mayor of Ndiob, Mr Oumar Bâ. This network boosts support and serves as a platform for exchange on implementation challenges. Thanks to REVES, some 30 mayors adopted a Charter of Green Municipalities and Cities of Senegal with which they committed “to design and implement local environmental development plans and to devote at least 2 % of our budgets to environmental education and environmental projects”.

Objectives

Adopted first by the City of Los Angeles in 2012, the Good Food Purchasing Program ® creates a transparent supply chain and helps institutions to measure and then make shifts in their food purchases.

 

Its objectives are:

  • To harness the purchasing power of major institutions to encourage greater production of sustainably produced food, healthy eating, respect for workers’ rights, humane treatment of animals and support for the local small business economy.
  • To shift as many dollars as possible towards Good Food in order to achieve an economy of scale.

It is the first procurement model to support five food system values – local economies, environmental sustainability, valued workforce, animal welfare and nutrition – in equal measure and thereby encourages myriad organizations to come together to engage for shared goals.

Within just six years, the Good Food Purchasing Program has achieved remarkable impact.

 

The Good Food Purchasing Program has set off a nationwide movement to establish similar policies in localities small and large, and inspired the creation of the Center for Good Food Purchasing.

Development of TEEBAgriFood

TEEB, known for its pioneering research on the economic values of nature in 2010, brought together more than 150 experts from 33 countries to deliver a strong and urgent message to the global community on the need for a transformation of our agriculture and food systems that is sustainable, equitable, and healthy. The TEEBAgriFood initiative brings together scientists, economists, policymakers, business leaders, and farmers’ organizations to agree on how to frame, undertake and use holistic evaluations of agricultural systems, practices, products, and policy scenarios against a comprehensive range of impacts and dependencies across food value chains.

TEEBAgriFood is hosted by The Economics of the Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) Office at the United Nations Environment Programme (UN Environment). The Global Alliance for the Future of Food, the European Commission, and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation support the initiative.

As a result of interdisciplinary collaboration, TEEBAgriFood goes beyond the original TEEB in that it seeks to be inclusive of externalities that are not typically included in environmental economics. This includes the social externalities, cultural externalities and health-related externalities of food systems, both negative and positive  (the stocks of eco-agri-food systems comprise four different “capitals” – produced capital, natural capital, human capital and social capital – which underpin a variety of flows encompassing production and consumption activity, ecosystem services, purchased inputs and residual flows).

Objectives

TEEBAgriFood is a systems approach for bringing together the various disciplines and perspectives related to agriculture and food, a framework for evaluation that supports the comprehensive, universal and inclusive assessment of eco-agri-food systems, a set of methodologies and tools for the measurement of positive and negative externalities, and a theory of change to help integrate TEEBAgriFood into the wide landscape of platforms and initiatives, like the SDGs, that are tackling these complex issues. It therefore plays a crucial role in the transformation of food and agriculture systems.

TEEB has three core principles:

  • Recognizing that the externalities of human behaviour on ecosystems, landscapes, species and other aspects of biodiversity is a feature of all human societies and communities.
  • Valuing these externalities in economic terms is often useful for policy-makers and business stakeholders in reaching decisions.
  • Managing the externalities involves the introduction of mechanisms that incorporate the values of ecosystems into decision-making through incentives and price signals.

Dedicated to uncovering the hidden costs and benefits, i.e. the negative as well as the positive externalities of agriculture and food, the beneficiaries of TEEBAgriFood are diverse, ranging from consumers to smallholder farmers. Stakeholders are policymakers, researchers, farmers, consumers, businesses, investors, the funding and donor communities.

Building a comprehensive community driven plan for peace and development

When Mayor Rommel C. Arnado was elected in May 2010, Kauswagan was still heavily affected by the Moro conflict. The first initiative that the administration made was to understand the causes at the root of the conflict in its community. A multisector technical working group was established and sent out to the remotest areas of the municipality to discuss directly with civilian and fighters. Additionally, several peace workshops were organized in conflict-affected areas. Arnado and his staff came to the conclusion that to achieve peace and stability it was necessary to address food security, poverty, hunger and inequalities. Through this bottom-up approach, a comprehensive community driven plan for peace and development called Sustainable Integrated Kauswagen Development and Peace Agenda (SIKAD-PA) was initiated, of which the From Arms to Farms Programme is a subcomponent.

The programme is based on a strong and broad participation of different actors. Peace-sensitive and performance-based plans and monitoring systems were set-up to ensure accountability and transparency. Financial management and tax collection reforms were also put in place.

The Arms to Farms programme shows that agroecology can be a powerful tool for radical and beneficial changes.

Building an inclusive policy

Rooted in the Danish political ambition to design policies that enable the private and public sector to become more innovative and competitive, the Minister of Agriculture put in place clear procedures for involving relevant stakeholders in order to ensure that the plan could meet the needs of the sector. Involvement was secured at the beginning of the plan development process based on a year-long consultation process and collaboration with the organic sector.

  • Preparation was based on a comprehensive process involving more than 200 stakeholders, who participated in three large workshops.
  • The Organic Food Council, a government-led forum of relevant interest groups, was involved in prioritizing the initiatives recommended, as a result of three workshops and 35 interviews held with key actors in the organic sector.

Stakeholder involvement was key to the Danish Organic Action Plan and ultimately led to its great success.

Reorientation

The history of governmental support to organic farming in Denmark starts in 1987, when the Danish Parliament adopted the Organic Farming Act, which laid down the basic structure of Danish organic farming policy, which still remains today. Permanent subsidies for organic farming were introduced in 1994. Early Organic Action Plans (OAPs) were established from 1995 to 1999.

 

The current OAP ‘Working together for more organics’ covers the period 2011 to 2020. It was revised and expanded in 2015, following a change of Government. The plan aims at doubling the land area of organic production by 2020 (against a baseline of 2007), and earmarks specific budgets over the period 2015 to 2018 to a set of different action-points. This plan was initiated by the Ministry for Agriculture and developed with the assistance of an external consultant.

The Danish Organic Action Plan was developed through the involvement of a broad spectrum of stakeholders in charge of defining the action points of the plan through several cycles of interviews, questionnaires and workshops. Since the 80s Denmark has been a forerunner in governmental support to sustainable agriculture, but the country is also a worldwide pioneer when it comes to designing policies according to inclusive and participatory approaches.

  • Whereas in the past the focus of policy support for organic farming was often production-oriented, the current Danish OAP considers market development (including support for certain marketing channels), promotion and awareness, as well as public procurement, as priorities.
  • The OAP is a mix of push and pull actions. Push effects are meant to increase production, while pull measures aim at increasing the demand for organic products.