The Global People’s Caravan
Rural peoples are rising to confront unprecedented global hunger, displacement, and environmental and climate destruction. They hold imperialism–or the dominance of the wealthiest countries’ elites and their corporate giants–accountable. For truly deep-rooted policy reforms that can address the multiple crises plaguing the world’s peoples, rural peoples movements must be strengthened.
The Global Peoples’ Caravan for Food, Land, and Climate Justice is built upon the Global People’s Summit’s vision of radical food systems transformation. It aims to mobilize rural communities and advocates from around the world by uniting their voices on critical issues related to food, land, and climate, and demanding accountability from governments and corporations.
4 Pillars of Radical Transformation of Food Systems
Right to adequate, safe, nutritious, and culturally-appropriate food
People’s Food Sovereignty
Peasant Rights to Land and Resources
People-Led Agroecology
Forward Our Future
The vulnerability of the current development paradigm, which big corporate powers want to perpetuate, is becoming increasingly evident. In a futile effort to continuously mask the fundamental contradictions between plunderous profit-making and sustainability, the UN has concocted the Summit of the Future (SOTF) that will take place in September 2024.
With its broad agenda beyond sustainable development, the SOTF does not only seek to preserve an unjust, unequal, and unsustainable global order. It also aims to deepen further the corporate monopoly control over global governance. For the rural people and all the oppressed and exploited, there is no bright future or genuine sustainable development under the global political and economic system dominated by monopoly corporations driven by an endless quest to accelerate profit rates and capital accumulation.
The Caravan’s events and activities highlight the genuine development agenda of rural people and other oppressed and exploited social sectors, culminating towards the 𝗦𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗶𝘁 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗥𝘂𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗣𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲’𝘀 𝗗𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗽𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗔𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗮 on 23 September 2024 that advances the progressive and exhaustive policy reforms needed to address the multiple global crises that the SOTF and other similar global platforms are unwilling and unable to move forward in their efforts to conceal the roots and nature of the crises.
Caravan Pit Stops
Led by the Peasant Movement of the Philippines, hundreds of farmers, agricultural workers and fisherfolk from the regions of Southern Tagalog, Central Luzon, Negros and Bicol converged in Manila in a protest marking the anniversary of the Philippine government’s sham land reform program, as part of the Global People’s Caravan. 
Led by Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek (PKMT), community consultations & mobilizations served as a platform for in-depth discussions on current issues on food, land and climate. In Pakistan, small-scale and landless farmers grapple with the repercussions of IMF-imposed conditionalities that lead to corporatization of food systems and land grabbing. 
Led by BARCIK, youth groups, farmer, IPs & fisherfolk held actions, dialogues, seed fairs, and food exhibitions in Rajshahi, Satkhira, Netrakona and Manikganj Districts in Bangladesh. Around 800 people were mobilized around demands for agroecology, food sovereignty and climate justice. 
Led by Caritas & LODC, rural women in Nepal conducted a traditional food demonstration to promote culturally appropriate and locally available food through agroecology, and to demand an end to fossil fueled agriculture. 
Led by Vikalpani, rural women in Sri Lanka conducted a petition signing for Rural Peoples Demands for COP28 in the town of Bhuthala, Monaragala. 
Led by Sindhudurg Diocesan Development Society, the Dhangar nomadic tribe in Maharashtra, India joins the People’s Caravan! With livestock, farming and forest cultivation as a source of food and livelihood, they face threats to rights to their ancestral lands and access to natural resources. 
SHISUK held community consultations and seed sharing in Basora and Chapatoli villages in Bangladesh to empower rural women and promote agroecology and food sovereignty. 
Keystone Foundation facilitated community consultations in tribal villages in Purulia district, West Bengal, India, tackling the issues of traditional agriculture vs chemical farming, indigenous seeds, and climate change impacts, culminating in local marches. 
Led by BARCIK, youth groups, farmer, IPs & fisherfolk held actions, dialogues, seed fairs, and food exhibitions in Rajshahi, Satkhira, Netrakona and Manikganj Districts in Bangladesh. Around 800 people were mobilized around demands for agroecology, food sovereignty and climate justice. 
Community consultation in Odisha, India (by Odisha Partners) 
Community consultation in West Bengal, India (by Keystone Foundation) 
Community action in West Bengal, India (by Keystone Foundation) 
Local paddy preservation as part of the Caravan (by Caritas Nepal) 
Community consultation in Nepal (by Social Work Institute) 
Climate justice march in Pakistan (by PKMT) 
National consultation in Pakistan (by PKMT) 
Global Day of Action vs. UNFSS +2 in the Philippines 
Global Day of Action vs. UNFSS +2 in the Philippines 
Thai peasants and advocates join the Caravan 
Indonesian peasants and advocates join the Caravan 
Vietnamese peasants and advocates join the Caravan 
Community consultation in Bangladesh (by BARCIK) 
Global Day of Action vs. UNFSS +2 in Indonesia 
Community action in Bangladesh 
Petition signing for COP28 in Manila, Philippines 
Launch of People’s Caravan in Cambodia 
Launch of People’s Caravan in Bangkok 
Launch of People’s Caravan in the Philippines 
Launch of People’s Caravan in Bangladesh
Updates
🖊️ REGISTER HERE: bit.ly/GPCForwardOurFuture📅 September 23🕓 2PM CEST | 3PM Amman | 3PM Kampala | 5:30PM New Delhi | 8PM Manila
Organized by the Global People’s Caravan for Food, Land, and Climate Justice with the People’s Coalition on Food Sovereignty, PAN Asia Pacific, Asian Peasant Coalition, and the International Indigenous People’s Movement on Self-determination and Liberation.
The profit-driven model perpetuated by big imperialist powers is unsustainable, exploitative, and oppressive. It hinders genuine sustainable development and threatens the planet. In a desperate attempt to mask this fundamental contradiction, the UN is organizing the Summit of the Future (SOTF) on September 23-24, 2024.
Supposedly, it aims to get the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) back on track and respond to new opportunities and challenges. However, the current draft of the Pact for the Future – a negotiated political declaration of the SOTF – reveals contradictions. While it emphasizes sustainable development, it also promotes neoliberal trade, export-oriented growth, and investment liberalization. Notably, it lacks specifics on structural issues like control over land and resources and the unsustainability of corporate food systems. Additionally, it focuses on climate finance but remains silent on phasing out fossil fuels.
Using the SDGs as a pretext, the SOTF seeks to preserve an unjust, unequal, and unsustainable global order. It aims to further consolidate and deepen corporate monopoly control over global governance through multistakeholderism (essentially a public-private partnership between the UN and transnational corporations or TNCs) and create more profit-making through science, technology, and innovation or STI (the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution), which the TNCs also falsely present as the cure-all to the multiple crises.
The SOTF will occur amid rising tensions between imperialist powers, with the US striving to maintain dominance against challenges, especially from China. This rivalry fuels wars and aggravates hunger, displacement, and environmental destruction.
People’s Summit
For rural and oppressed peoples, a bright future or truly sustainable development is unattainable under a global system dominated by profit-driven monopoly corporations and imperialist powers competing for domination. Today, the rural people have been forwarding their future through grassroots struggles, campaigns, and policy advocacies. The Global Peoples’ Caravan for Food, Land, and Climate Justice (GPC), launched in 2023, aimed to provide a platform for these ongoing national and local efforts to support each other and build international solidarity for the demands of the rural people.
The GPC will organize the Forward Our Future: Summit for the Peoples’ Development Agenda to highlight these struggles and demands and counter and expose the SOTF. The People’s Summit will culminate the local, national, regional, sectoral, and thematic consultations, forums, and other actions that the GPC has organized since last year. It will also further build on the outcomes of the Global People’s Summit for Just, Equitable, Healthy, and Sustainable Food Systems (GPS) held in September 2021.
From these previous efforts, rural peoples’ concrete policy demands and aspirations – the Rural Peoples’ Development Agenda – shall be collated and presented at the People’s Summit. The development agenda shall be divided into Food, Land, and Climate Justice.
Break the chains of imperialist plunder and profiteering. It will cover the issues of global governance, imperialist and TNC control over food systems, fossil-fuel hungry agri-food systems, etc.
Shift the future towards the rural peoples’ rights and welfare. It will cover the issues of genuine land reform, food sovereignty and agroecology, financing for radical food systems transformation, etc.
The People’s Summit shall produce a declaration called Forward Our Future: Rural Peoples’ Pact for Food, Land, and Climate Justice, which synthesizes the different rural communities and movements’ demands and aspirations gathered and discussed from the GPS to the GPC. The Forward Our Future pact will serve as a call to action to continue and strengthen the rural peoples’ struggles to realize these demands and aspirations, including on people’s food sovereignty and agroecology, genuine land reform and rural development, and climate justice.
The Rural People’s Development Agenda and Forward Our Future Pact shall serve as basis for future campaigns, cooperation, and solidarity among the groups that participated in the GPC.
We call everyone to organize gatherings in their communities, offices, or other places and join the summit via Zoom. The event will also be livestreamed via the GPC Facebook page and cross-posted in the pages of the organizers.
It will take place on September 23, 2024, from 8:00 PM to 10:00 PM Manila to coincide with the second day/closing of the SOTF. ### […]
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A No Land, No Life! solidarity webinar series organized by PAN Asia Pacific (PANAP), People’s Coalition on Food Sovereignty, and the Asian Peasant Coalition (APC) under the Global People’s Caravan for Food, Land, and Climate Justice (GPC) campaign.
A major component of the Global People’s Caravan for Food, Land, and Climate Justice (GPC) campaign is international solidarity to ongoing national or local struggles against land and resource grabbing. The GPC aims to mobilize support for these struggles in various ways, including education and awareness-raising of affected communities’ particular issues and demands.
The Peasants Rise against Land & Resource Grabs! solidarity webinar series will bring together South and Southeast Asian peasant movements campaigning against land and resource grabbing and corporate control of food and agriculture systems. These public forums will highlight the resistance of local communities and the assertion of their legitimate rights. They will contribute to informing and educating civil society, people’s organizations, and the general public about the region’s different land and resource grabbing cases, get their support for the affected communities, and build solidarity.
The webinar series will feature peasant movements and their advocates from Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka. The following are the groups involved in each country and their specific issues and campaigns on land and resource grabs.
The webinars will use a talk show/interview format with a host and a panel of guests representing the communities/organizations. The panel comprises local leaders on the frontlines of the struggle against land and resource grabbing in their communities. A set of questions will be provided to the panelists in advance to allow them to prepare concise but substantial responses. The interview is divided into three parts guided by a set of questions.
The webinar series will take place on the following dates and times:
SOUTH EAST ASIA
Featuring Ponlok Khmer (Cambodia), Aliansi Gerakan Reforma Agraria (Indonesia), and Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (Philippines)
🖊️ REGISTER HERE: bit.ly/PeasantRiseSEA📅 September 5🕓 4PM Manila | 3PM Phnom Penh | 3PM Jakarta
SOUTH ASIA
Featuring Andhra Pradesh Vyavsaya Vruthidarula Union (India), Pakistan Kissan Mazdoor Tehreek (PKMT), and National Fisheries Solidarity Movement (Sri Lanka)
🖊️ REGISTER HERE: https://bit.ly/PeasantRiseSA📅 September 12🕓 1:30PM New Delhi | 1:30PM Colombo | 1PM Karachi […]
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