“The Climakers”, the initiative according to which all the actors in the food value chain and other stakeholders, work together with the farmers, to advance the global political dialogue on agriculture and climate change, promoting farmers’ contribution to the Paris Climate Agreement, has been recognized by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) as an effective model of multi-stakeholder engagement for the implementation of SDG13.
On June 6th, DESA released a summary report consolidating messages from stakeholders on the implementation of the SDGs that will be reviewed during the July 2019 session of the UN High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF): SDG 4, SDG 8, SDG 10, SDG 13, SDG 16 and SDG 17.
When adopting the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, Member States decided to undertake thematic reviews of progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including cross-cutting issues.
In January and February 2019, DESA conducted an online consultation to promote broad and participatory engagement on the follow up and review of the 2030 Agenda implementation.
As representative of the Farmers Major Group, WFO was invited to participate in the consultation and its inputs were included in the above-mentioned report.
This represents a tremendous achievement as it officially recognizes that working through the entire value chain in a joint bottom-up approach, including all the actors, not only the institutions, is the only way to get effective solutions for a sustainable future that everyone can benefit from.
“The Climakers” initiative, that has been recognized as an effective model of multi-stakeholder engagement for the implementation of SDG13, is a multi-stakeholder alliance that regroups farmers, researchers, international organisations, private sector and public sector actors. Together with the other partners in this agenda, WFO aims at promoting a reverse paradigm in the policy making on climate change in agriculture, based on the bottom up approach, where farmers lead the process on climate change and influence the National Determined Contributions, based on the best practices they are already implementing to adapt to and mitigate climate change.
Similar alliances should be made, at national and international levels, in the hope of establishing networks where all members have equal footing and can share their expertise.
Although the agricultural sector is often identified as a cause of the climate change, farmers hold an important part of the solution to address its effects and impact. That is why the farmers want to lead the global agenda on climate change in agriculture.