Both ENDS
October 10th the fifth board meeting of the Green Climate Fund took place, this time in Paris. The Green Climate Fund is an international fund set up and commissioned by the United Nations in order to help developing countries combatting the negative effects of climate change. Possibly, developing countries are granted with an amount of $100 billion a year! Although the financial support is very promising, opinions differ widely on how that money should be spent. Therefore Anouk Franck and Annelieke Duma of Both ENDS attended, along with Titi Soentoro of the Indonesian organization Aksi! and Jorge Daneri of M'Bigua from Argentina, to make sure that the money gets where it is most needed.
It's October, time for the annual meeting of the World Bank in Washington DC in which the annual results and future plans will be presented to the outside world. It also gives NGOs from all over the world an oppotunity to talk with World Bank’s administrators and relevant staff on future policies. Pieter Jansen of Both ENDS travelled to Washington together with three representatives of local organisations in the South: Yu Chen of Green Watershed from China, Mayra Tenjo of ILSA from Colombia and Ram Wangkheirakpam of NEPA from India. Their main purpose is to highlight the importance of social- and environmental requirements that the investments of the World Bank should meet, the so-called 'safeguards'.
Minister Ploumen of Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation is visiting Brazil on a trade mission for the second time this year. On the government website she says: ‘for Dutch companies there are a lot of trade opportunities in Brazil. Foreign trade also creates domestic jobs.’ The Netherlands is one of the top 5 export partners of Brazil. But who profits from this solid trade relation in Brazil? To make the minister and her travel companions aware of this question, Both ENDS sent her a letter.
Recently Both ENDS and agricultural and horticultural cooperative Agrifirm organised a field visit for members of the Dutch Soy Coalition. The group visited two farmers in the province of Drenthe who have been participating in the first practice test to grow Soy in Netherlands. One of them is an organic poultry farmer and the other a conventional dairy farmer. Both use soy in animal feed on the farm. Tamara Mohr of Both ENDS was there and explains about this initiative.
Syngenta , global producer of seeds and agrochemicals, will become an ' observer ' within the UN Convention to Combat Desertification ( UNCCD ). This was decided last week during the annual meeting in Windhoek , Namibia and caused indignation among civil society groups. Groups that were present started a joint diplomatic protest. Our Both ENDS-colleague Nathalie van Haren took a leading role in this protest and was the spokeswoman towards the media. She explains what it was all about.
The Government of Ecuador offered a petition to the Human Rights Council of the United Nations on September 13th. In this petition, which was signed by Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Kyrgyzstan, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Venezuela, Peru, the African Group and the Arab Group, Ecuador stresses the need for binding international regulation for transnational corporations. This action is warmly welcomed and supported by more than 100 social movements and civil society organizations, representing hundreds of thousands of workers, farmers and members of indigenous communities. Both ENDS strongly supports this action and our colleague Lieke Ruijmschoot explains why.