By Ms. Marlene Ramirez, Secretary General - AsiaDHRRA
Isang magandang umaga po sa lahat! Good morning to all of you!
Our sincere appreciation to Mr. Tsurumi, FAO Country Representative, for his presence today and his inspiring message for all of us.
Please allow me, on behalf of AsiaDHRRA, as host NGO, to welcome you once again to this important consultation. A special welcome again to those who came from far away. You came at an important celebratory week in the Philippines, for the edsa “people power revolution” , which many of us in various ways participated in 1986. We claimed our democratic space from a dictatorship and united as a people. And we needed to be reminded of that gain, every time. Especially that after 26 years, majority of our poor people remain poor. Rural poverty abounds, thus the democracy that we fought hard for, has not really served the best interest of the majority. We are holding this meeting in the midst of our 2nd financial district called Ortigas Center, next to Makati. But please be cautioned that the modernity that you see around in no way represent the Philippines. So, I am glad that at least some of you will get to see the Cordilleras. Nevertheless, amidst all the uncertainties that many of our people face, we have endless reasons to thank for in this beautiful country, as nicely put by Jackie last night. So, a warm welcome.
In the next two days, we are also gathered for a not so very far off reason -- to help “democratize space” and find ways of institutionalizing civil society participation in an institution called FAO. When we were invited by FAO to help arrange for or coordinate this two day event, we did not think twice, and accepted it.
AsiaDHRRA , as a regional network dedicated to human resource development in the rural areas, and in building partnerships to develop leaders and rural communities, saw this meeting as an opportunity to further its effort, together with fellow regional CSOs, many of whom are with us today, of finding better ways of engaging FAO, especially at this time where more effective responses to the enormous challenge of food insecurity in the region, compounded by the recent global financial crisis and the growing concern for climate change, have to be put together.
In February 2008, I participated in the FAO-CSO meeting in Rome in preparation for the June HL meeting. I still recall my small intervention in that meeting, written in small notes: that FAO meetings in Rome will be best served if there are sufficient regional processes. I found it a pity that the many initiatives of CSOs at the regional/national level cannot be properly recognized during those global meetings given the lack of space, the unevenness of representation, and generally, the weakness of global stakeholders' being far-off from realities on the ground. I also asked then on the role of FAO's decentralized offices and the response was unclear to me. Or I actually thought there was a disconnect. I was on expectation that FAO-RAP, for instance, is feeding into the global process based on their stronger regional handle of the issues and their work at the national level. I was actually wondering if our small efforts of engaging the regional office was making sense at all.
As a regional network, we have maintained a view that the relevance of all these global debates and meetings of Rome-based food and agri agencies, is anchored on the translation of the resulting declarations/statements into concrete programming, strategies, mechanisms, and actions at the regional and national levels. We feel at this time that we have to participate/contribute to global processes, but the sustainability and incentive for us to continue along this, is in having clear handles of how these global commitments can become concrete results and outcomes at the national local level, seen in the improvement of the lives of those affected by the issues that we are dealing with.
We are here today, not just because we thought it'll just be a simple small meeting – 10 to 15 people, a first step of an important process. Now we are 35. But also because we believe that we have to be part of the solution to what we think is wrong or weak in the processes of civil society engagement with FAO. We thank FAO-RAP for their openness to engage CSOs and their constant assistance, as shown in recent regional meetings, and in collaboration with FAO-OCEP, for facilitating this process that we will partake in the coming days.
We sincerely thank all of you for being here. We appreciate the fact that we have a good number of basic sector representatives. This is important for us. And also the fact that we have representation from almost the same Asian stakeholders in the just concluded GFF supported by IFAD, hence giving us possibility of integrating some of the key action points from the GFF to the regional FAO process. And this relates to our call for the various UN food and agri agencies to continue to converge and find coherence in their strategies and actions, esp at the national and regional levels.
Finally, as your host, please do not hesitate to approach the secretariat for any assistance. We apologize for any inconvenience you may have experience towards the organizing of this meeting. We count on your goodwill and support to make the most of this opportunity before us, an serve well our agenda and aspiration for the rural poor in the AP region.
Please allow me at this point to introduce to you a very important person who will help us reach our objectives of this meeting. Some of you have met her last night, please welcome Ms. Carmela Ariza.
Maraming salamat po!
Marlene Ramirez
Secretary General
AsiaDHRRA
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