On 24-28 February, the Second International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD+20) will be held in Cartagena, Colombia, marking 20 years since the first edition.

Ahead of the conference, hundreds of delegates that make up the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC), including Indigenous Peoples, peasant movements, fisherfolk, rural workers and more will gather in Cartagena for the Peoples’ and Social Movements Forum. This will be a space to build alliances, articulate perspectives, proposals and strategies to continue building solidarity. In addition, there will also be an Academic Forum.

On 18 February the IPC released a position paper urging governments to move beyond voluntary commitments and adopt binding, measurable actions to ensure redistributive land reform, equitable access to natural resources, democratic governance, and agroecological rural development.

“Twenty years after the first ICARRD, land, water, forests and oceans are increasingly concentrated in the hands of corporations and financial actors, driving dispossession, inequality and ecological collapse. Small-scale food producers, Indigenous Peoples, pastoralists, fishers, rural women and workers continue to be excluded from their territories and decision-making spaces,” says the IPC in its official webpage. “Without secure collective rights to land and territories, there can be no food sovereignty, no just transition, and no lasting peace. At ICARRD+20, IPC brings forward a clear political vision to reclaim land and dignity worldwide,” the statement adds.

Morgan Ody, General Coordinator of La Vía Campesina, and Tammi Jonas, representative of the Agroecology and Food Sovereignty Alliance, share their perspectives in this podcast produced by the Communications Team of the IPC.