From left: government delegates, co-chairs Hans
Herren and Judy Wakungu, UNEP Director Achim Steiner and IAASTD Director Bob
Watson; dancing after adoption; Right: The IAASTD turtle, who started it's long
walk in 2004 in Nairobi, coming down the home stretch
Internal NGO website on the "International
Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development"
Final IAASTD plenary
in Johannesburg calls for new agricultural revolution
Representatives of 60 governments, the Worldbank and all
UN Agencies, as well as about 50 NGOs were meeting 6 to 12 April 2008 in Johannesburg
for the final intergovernmental plenary of the IAASTD to find consensus on the
international and 5 subregional assessments. On Friday 11th governments concluded
their line by line approval of the Summaries for Decisionmakers and of a Synthesis
Report and accepted the underlying 2000 pages of scientific evidence in the
assessment reports. While all goverments present agreed on a positive
joint statement on the assessment, three governments did not approve and accept
the report. Guess who?
Official
press releases and a media advisory are available at the
official website of the IAASTD
Summaries
of the adopted documents are available at greenfacts
The full reports and summaries can be
downloaded from the IAASTD website. The best
overview is probably the International Synthesis
Report.
To follow up on the issue, please join us at "Planet Diversity" in
Bonn, Germany, 12 - 16 May 2008 (a dedicated workshop on the IAASTD with NGO
represenatives and authors is planned on Tuesday 13th May)
News:
Via Google News: World
news (English) on IAASTD Deutsche
Nachrichten zum IAASTD La
presse sur IAASTD la
prensa sobre IAASTD
16 April 2008:
New York Times:
U.N. Panel Urges Changes to Feed Poor While Saving Environment
Germany: Deutsches
Umweltministerium begrüßt Bericht des Weltagrarrates
15 April 2008:
Reuters: Free
food trade threatens environment, poor: report
Al Jazeera, Video: Rethinking
food crisis solutions
Guardian: UN
body urges agriculture reforms to stave off food crisis
Inter Press Service: Reinventing
Agriculture
The EastAfrican:
UN scientists say industrial agriculture has failed
Agence France Press: Farm
practices must change to counter high food prices
Inquirer Philippines: World
must reform agriculture now or face dire crisis
Le Monde:
Des experts appellent à repenser l'agriculture de demain
Der Spiegel:
Experten fordern radikale Umkehr der Agrarpolitik
BBC: Global
food system 'must change'
African Energy News Review, 13. April 2008:
UN biofuel warning, call for return to traditional farming
Farmers Guardian UK, 11. April 2008: Report
into global food production may draw flak from both sides of GM debate
Inter Press Service, 9 April:
"A Collective Ignorance About How Agriculture Interacts With Natural Systems"
Interview with UNEP Director Achim Steiner
The Hindu, 9 April 2008: Agri-practices
failed to alleviate food situation: UN report
Trading Markets: 8 April 2008: Agri-Practices
Failed To Alleviate Food Situation: Un Report
UN News Centre, 7 April 2008: Agriculture
must revert to more natural, local production – UN-backed report
The Bioscience Resource Project, 7. April: How
the Science Media Failed the IAASTD
Inter Press Service, 6 april 2008: Towards
a New and Improved Green Revolution
Op ed by Hans Herren, co-chair:
Investing in Sustenance
Op ed by Jan van Aken, Greenpeace:
Defining the Future of Agriculture
New Scientist, 5 April 2008:
Andy Coghlan (editor):
How to kickstart an agricultural revolution
Comment by Deborah Keith (Syngenta):
Why I had to walk out
Comment by Janice Jiggins:
Bridging gulfs to feed the world
Science, 14 March 2008: Duelling
visions for a hungry world
AAAS 16. Feburary 2008:
Bob Watson gets AAAS award
German: Die Zeit 04. April 2008:Das
Weltsättigungsprojekt
Third World Network:
IAASTD draft proposes significant changes to status quo
January 2008: Monsanto, Syngenta withdraw from IAASTDClaiming that the final report of the IAASTD was "unbalanced"
and not sufficiently supportive of the use of genetic engineering in agriculture
two major Agro-chemical and biotech companies Monsanto and Syngenta have withdrawn
from the process. It appears that they did not like the results and findings
of the about 4000 scientsts involved and prefer to ignore the advice of the
lead scientists, which they have jointly selected with governments and non governmental
organisations three years ago.
Guardian,
22 January: Biotech companies desert international agriculture project
Nature
17 January 2008, Editorial: Deserting the hungry? Monsanto and Syngenta are
wrong to withdraw from an international assessment on agriculture.
December
2007: Watson interviews on key issues of IAASTD on you tube
What is the
IAASTD? A United Nations process to identify the best available
and newly needed science, technology and knowledge to answer the question above.
Initiated by the World Bank in Johannesburg in 2002 this process started with
regional consultations in eleven regions of the world and was endorsed by a Steering
Committee of 40 representatives of governments and civil society in 2003. Since
then more than 300 scientists and experts have produced a global and five sub-regional
assessments which have been reviewed in two rounds. The process is overseen by
a multi-stakeholder Bureau from governments and civil society. After the final
round of public reviews the Assessment will be adopted by participating governments
in January 2008 in Nairobi.
IAASTD
2003 - 2007 Concept, options, key findings, where we are, how to get involved
a summary and overview by Teopista, Kevin Akoyi (Vredeseilanden), October 2007
download
same document as powerpoint presentation
All
about the IAASTD on three pages Presentation
on the IAASTD by Director Robert T. Watson (2006)
decisions
of the bureau
decisions
of the bureau presentation
of the Secretariat on the state of the development at the IAAST Burea Meeeting
IAASTD Bureau
Meeting in Montpellier
At its last meeting in Montpellier the Bureau of the
IAASTD adopted the outlines of the global and sub-regional assessments. The
revised global and remaining sub-regional outlines, the minutes of the Bureau
meeting, revised rules and procedures, timeline and budget are published at
the official web-site at www.agassessment.org.
List
of approved decisions of the Bureau picture
of participants high
resolution (big)
18 - 22 July Scenarios Workshop
Rome, Italy
Presentation
of Mark Rosegrant, IFPRI: Scenario
development for IAASTD
Presentation
of Monica Zurek and Prabhu Pingali: The
Global Scenarios of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
23-25 May Integrated (Global and Sub-Global)
design team, Montpellier, France
25-27 May Bureau meeting, Montpellier,
France
Minutes,
decisions, revised budget, revised global and sub-regional outlines, timetable
27-29 April Sub-global design
team Latin America and the Caribbean, San Jose,
Outline
of LAC Assessment
14-16 April Sub-global design
team North America/Europe, London, UK
Outline
of NAE Assessment
9-12 April, Sub-global design
team East/South Asia and the Pacific, Beijing, China
Outline
of ESAP Assessment
4-6 April Sub-global design
team Sub-Saharan Africa, Nairobi, Kenya
Outline of SSA Assessment
(available soon)
8-11 February Central and
West Asia and North Africa, Rabat, Morocco.
Outline
of CWANA Assessment
30 January - 3 February,
Global Design Team, Bangkok, Thailand
92 specialists participated in the meeting in Bangkok. A draft annotated chapter
outline was developed -- this draft will be available later this month for comments
after review by the Bangkok team.
Outline
and annotated Chapters of the Global assessment
Kick-off in Nairobi
The first meeting of the parties (governments), the 5 co-sponsoring
UN agencies and the World Bank as well as civil society representatives took
place at the UNEP headquarter in Nairobi from August 30 to September 3rd 2004.
The government representatives (45 countries present) decided to go ahead with
the Assessment. They agreed on the content and scope of the Assessment and adopted
outlines and procedures, a time-table and a baseline-budget of US$ 10,7 Mio.
A Bureau consisting of 30 government representatives, 22 representatives of
civil society and 8 representatives of international institutions was established
to oversee the process. The two co-chairs identified by the Bureau will be
Hans Herren and Professor Judi
Wakhungu, the Director of the Secretariat is Robert Watson.
Minutes
of the Nairobi Plenary 30. August - 3rd September
Benny Haerlin ((IAASTD CSO Bureau Member from Germany)
Greenpeace Intl., Email: haerlin[at]zs-l.de, Phone: + 49 173 9997555
Marcia Ishii-Eiteman, PhD (Lead Author, Global Report)
Pesticide Action Network North America (in US)
Email: mie[at]panna.org, Office: +1-415-981-1771, Home: 1-510-981-9721, Mobile:
1-510-684-6860
Lim Li Ching (Lead Author, Asia report; note surname Lim)
Third World Network, Email: limliching[at]myjaring.net, mobile: +6012 2079744
Romeo Quijano, MD (IAASTD CSO Bureau member)
PAN Philippines, Email: romyquij[at]yahoo.com, mobile: +63-9-27-602-4947
Erika Rosenthal, LLD (Lead Author, Global & Synthesis Report;
Trade Theme)
Email: erosenthal[at]igc.org, Office: +1-202-742-5846, Mobile +1-415-812-2055.
April 14-16 in London: +44-20-7839-9333
Patrick Mulvany (IAASTD CSO Bureau Member)
Practical Action, Email: patrickmulvany[at]clara.co.uk, Mobile +44 7949 575711
Juan Lopez Friends of the Earth International
Email: juanlopezvillar[at]gmail.com, Phone (Maputo): +258842420298
Jan Van Aken , Greenpeace Intl.
Email: jan.vanaken[at]int.greenpeace.org, Phone: +49 40 306 18-389, Mobile: +49
151 1805 3415
SPANISH-Speaking:
Luis Gomero (Lead Author, Latin America Regional report)
RAAA, Peru, Email: lgomero[at]raaa.org, Tel: (51-1) 4257955
