GLOBAL COOPERATION NEWSLETTER
August 2014
In this issue:
 Living and Working in a Sustainable Relationship with the Earth:Strengthening Community Capacity to Produce and Eat Nutritious FoodIntergovernmental cooperation on ageing issues



ICSW General Assembly MeetingUseful resources and links

Featured article:
 Living and Working in a Sustainable Relationship with the Earth:Strengthening Community Capacity to Produce and Eat Nutritious Food – by Dorothy N.
GambleProfessor Dorothy N. Gamble, MSW, taught community practice at the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill, USA, for 35 years. After her retirement she continues to write and present on issues of sustainable
development, human rights and social justice. She can be contacted at dee_gamble@unc.edu

Introduction
The negative impact on the environment of relying too heavily on fossil
fuels and the excessive use of nitrogen has been well recognized. Thosepatterns are rapidly destroying fragile elements of the Earth’s biosphereand ecosystems. The prospect of global environmental change isassociated

with

major

long-term

risks

and

uncertainties

fordevelopment, with profound social consequences. This sentiment ofenvironmental anxiety has been well captured by ecologists (and shared by many other scientists) in
the following way: “The Earth can live without us. We cannot live without the Earth” (Korten, 2014p.14). Many environmentalists and other scientists have explored sustainability concerns in depth
and have advocated a range of required changes in our behaviors and practices. Making conscious,
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intelligent choices about how to live in a sustainable relationship with the Earth requires rethinking
our association with the Earth’s resources, including how food is produced, distributed and consumed.
Not only “eco-philosophers” but also many skilled developers challenge us to find new approaches tofood security that will help us improve our relationships with each other and with the Earth. New
approaches and the accompanying “new stories” are required, because stories are one of the mostuseful mediums that humans have to describe their values, purposes in the world, contributions tohumanity, and paths to the future. It is our stories that guide our behaviors all across the range ofcultural traditions that exist in the world. This article focuses on civil society organizations' efforts tofacilitate the production and distribution of food in the global quest for sustainability, biodiversity,and human security.
New Paradigms for Living with the Earth.
Some current approaches relating to agricultural economics and the production and distribution offood are so embedded in our lives that we are unable to think more broadly and critically about their
negative outcomes. Some critics, such as David Suzuki (2014), note that economies are nothing but
human creations, and that if they are recognized as failing Earth communities by becoming more
destructive than productive, they can be changed. Vandana Shiva (2005), physicist andenvironmental activist, working with global colleagues, has developed a ten-point “Earth Democracy”
that provides direction for justice, sustainability and peace. In her view, it is the only way that will
help save humanity as well as the Earth’s resources. Another set of guidelines for reducing
vulnerabilities to climate change and moving toward sustainable development originated at the 2012
United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development —Rio+20. In the process of that conference's
preparation, contributions came from people on every continent and representing every major
cultural and religious group, contemporary science, international law, global ethics movements, andbest practices for contributing to sustainable development. An earlier initiative that helped to put
forward ethical principles pertinent to the transition to sustainable ways of living was the creation of“The Earth Charter” launched in 2000. Guidance from the Rio+20 Conference and the Earth Charter

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speaks directly to the importance of wise engagement with the food chain -- food production,
distribution, and consumption.
It is well known that food for well-being begins with adequate calories and nutrition for
effective brain and body development, but must also address the issue of access. Regrettably, foodsecurity remains an acute, primary concern for millions of people -- nearly 850 million people do nothave a secure daily food source. In the USA, one of the richest countries in the world, nearly one infive people suffer from food insecurity, pondering the critical question where the next meal will comefrom. Food security is a multidimensional concept, and according to the Food and Agricultural
Organization of the United Nations, it is characterized by such aspects as “availability, access,utilization and stability” (FAO, The State of Food Insecurity in the World, 2013). Food security andaccess to nutritious food is connected to policies that embrace economic aspects, agricultural
production and food distribution, access to water resources, land use, and the education of farmers,
food handlers, and consumers. It is well recognized that lack of access to healthy and nutritious foodis associated with low levels of health and well-being.
Think globally, act locallyThe need for new approaches to guide the production and distribution of food that is bothnutritious and affordable to people, as well as sustainable and friendly to the Earth's resources, hasbeen taken up in New Mexico, USA, by the nonprofit organization Farm to Table (FTT). In the desert
south-west of the country, food insecurity is being targeted by FTT, whose goal is to increase the“availability of nutritious, affordable, locally grown and culturally significant food for the populationof New Mexico and surrounding states” (Farm to Table, 2014). The core values of Farm to Table arelinked to the fundamental recognition that food is a basic human right, while access to regionallygrown, healthy and culturally relevant food is paramount to the well-being and sustainability ofcommunities. They concentrate their efforts on developing capacities among producers, distributors,
and consumers to grow, sell and eat local, nutritious and affordable food. By doing so, they enablelocal communities to connect with the larger concern for a living Earth. They build opportunities forPage 3 of 11

people to live and practice new approaches that are congruent with the protection and renewal of the
Earth, her inhabitants and resources.
Building the Capacities of Producers, Distributors and Consumers.
FTT’s programs engage with farmers through outreach, education, networking and farmer-to-farmer
workshops, promoting family farming and establishing farmers markets. Food Policy Councils,
facilitated by FTT across the state of New Mexico help consumers, producers, health officials, policy
makers, indigenous tribal representatives and others learn about the linkages between farming, food,health,schools,

restaurants

andregional

economies.

Educational

efforts

andnetworking

opportunities are provided in a variety of FTT programs, including the New Mexico Organic Farming
Conference and the Southwest Marketing Network. The Farm to Restaurant program works withrestaurant chefs to purchase local foods and celebrate seasonal, fresh produce that needs to travel
only a few miles to reach the consumer. The FoodCorp program, partnering with the University of
New Mexico, recruits and hosts nearly a dozen community leaders, placing them across the state toteach children about the nature of healthy food and where it comes from, to help schools build andtend gardens, and to bring quality local food into public-school cafeterias. Farm to School programs
help children learn about healthy eating habits, and the school cafeterias provide food from local
sources, including the school gardens that children plant and harvest. Those programs reach morethan 50 schools in New Mexico. Recently FTT developed a “Toolkit” for food safety in School Gardens.
FTT also runs educational programs to help local communities build their knowledge of pollinatorfriendly plants and expand their capacity to keep environments (farms, yards, parks, riverbanks,etc.) pesticide free and pollinator friendly.
Historically all communities in the state of New Mexico have their imprint on the ways in whichfood is grown and becomes available. FTT New Mexico uses a mix of ways and means, including
Native American wisdom of the sacred Earth Mother, Hispanic traditions of earth and water protection
and sustainability, as well as the latest agricultural science developed by the Agricultural Extension
Service, helpful farm and ranch policies promoted by the State Department of Agriculture, andPage 4 of 11

environmental science focused on building new approaches for sustainable food systems. FTT staff
work where they are invited, recognizing the importance of working with traditional perspectives inrural communities and using ways to blend cultural wisdom with knowledge gained from newunderstanding about soil conditions, water resources, climate changes and human well-being.
As consumers gain better knowledge about healthy diets, their interest grows in grass-fed
animals and animals raised on permaculture fields without the aid of antibiotics. In addition,
consumers are learning more about the potential dangers of herbicides and pesticides for the healthy
development of humans and animals. Organic farming and ranching made a $53 million contribution
to the New Mexican economy in 2013. There has been an explosion of farmers markets all across thestate of New Mexico, more than 35 in 2014, as small producers find collaborative ways to provide
fresh and nutritious foods to local consumers. Contrary to recent trends in the rest of the USA, thenumber of farms in New Mexico increased by 18 percent in the five years between 2007 and 2012.
In the longer run, farming depends upon the health of soils, the availability of sufficient waterand fortunate climate outcomes, and the health of pollinators, which are so necessary to abundant
production. Of course, the wise engagement with all of these resources is part of what makes a
farmer an efficient and safe food producer and promotes awareness of pesticide-free land stewardshipefforts and the continuing biodiversity necessary for sustainable development.

While New Mexico has decidedly different regional ecosystems for food production, FTT helps
the various regions to establish effective linkages between good farming and good eating practices.
To address the issue of water scarcity, which is acute in the state, FTT makes every effort to provide
useful information from historical Hispanic and Native American irrigation methods to develop drip
systems and hydroponics, approaches that will help conserve every drop of water available for healthy
food production.

National, state and local policies that directly affect the goals of providing nutritious,
affordable, locally grown and culturally significant food are a key to continuing the move away fromPage 5 of 11

industrial agricultural production. Such policies relate to facilitating schools, hospitals and seniorcenters to have the resources to make local purchases of healthy foods. They are policies that will
restrict the use of antibiotics in animal production, which are harmful to human health, and increase
the opportunities for small farm purchases. Such policies can protect water resources and facilitatebiodiversity among the foods available. Building community programs that help effective functioningof the very complex systems that make up the production, handling, distribution and consumption offood requires wise understanding of all the links. Sustainable development activists can help
communities to develop approaches that identify new relationships with each other, address theimperatives of establishing life-supporting ecosystems, and simultaneously protect human well-being(Gamble and Hoff, 2012).
(Note: Pamela M. Roy, Executive Director and Nelsy Dominguez, Deputy Director/Chief Operating
Officer, Farm to Table New Mexico, contributed to this article.)
Bibliography
Farm to Table, Farm to School, and Farmer Development programs. Retrieved May, 2014 at
http://www.farmtotablenm.org/programs/farmer-development/
Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). (2013). The State of Food Insecurity in the World, Retrieved
May, 2014 at, http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3458e/i3458e.pdf
Gamble, D. N. & Hoff, M. D. (2012). Sustainable community development. In M. Weil, M. Reisch, &M. L. Ohmer (Eds.). The handbook of community practice, 2nd Ed. 212-232. Thousand Oaks,
CA: Sage Publications.
Korten, D. (March 5, 2014). A new story for a new economy: To find our human place in a living
universe. Retrieved June, 2014 at http://www.yesmagazine.org/pdf/kortennewstory.pdf
Shiva, V. (2005). Earth democracy: Justice, sustainability, and peace. Cambridge, MA: South End
Press.
Suzuki, D. (2014) Time to get real on climate change. Bill Moyers, Retrieved May, 2014 at
http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-time-to-get-real-on-climate-change/
UnitedNations
FoodandAgriculture
http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3458e/i3458e.pdf

Organization

(FAO

of

UN)

Opinions expressed in the article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect views of the
ICSW Management Committee.

Page 6 of 11Intergovernmental cooperation on ageing issues

The fifth session of the Open-ended Working Group (OEWG) on Ageing aimed at strengthening
the protection of the human rights of older persons took place at UN Headquarters in New York from30 July to 1 August 2014. The previous four sessions of the OEWG were convened in 2011-2013.
Despite useful discussions highlighting many acute problems that older persons have been facing,
the results of the session were rather thin in substantive terms and disappointing to many, reflecting
a diplomatic stalemate on the key issue—the feasibility of a new legal instrument to protect the rightsof older persons, such as the proposed International Convention on the Rights and Dignity of Older
Persons.

Many delegates, along with representatives of international organizations and NGOs, spoke at
length about the vulnerabilities of older persons relating to their age; raised issues of income support
and financial security; and discussed welfare and social protection schemes, family andintergenerational solidarity, health care and long-term care, nutrition and shelter. It was underscoredduring the discussion that the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing has not lost its relevancefor policy makers and remains the point of reference on ageing-specific policies.

Quite often the arguments put forward by proponents and opponents of the Convention bore
much resemblance to the positions already articulated during the previous sessions of the OpenEnded Working Group. Developing countries, with the Latin American group in the forefront, putemphasis on the similarity of problems that older persons face in developing and developed countries
and the need for a new dedicated international instrument. That group of delegates argued –sometimes very eloquently and with great passion -- that in all regions of the world, no matter richor poor, the elderly faced similar challenges, namely poverty, violence, discrimination, abuse of all
kinds, from physical to financial, and eventually social exclusion. From their standpoint, many of theabove-mentioned social ills could be addressed much better if an International Convention on the
Rights on Older persons became a reality. Accordingly, the main purpose of the OEWG itself was seen
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by those representatives not so much to continue the current discussions—even given theirundeniable significance and importance—but to shift the focus to specific issues related to theelaboration of the framework of the proposed Convention, including consideration of some key
elements during the meetings of the OEWG. But those suggestions remained unacceptable to several
key developed countries. At the same time, some of the biggest players among the developing
countries, such as China and India, were very cautious in their statements and did not call outrightfor a new legal instrument either.

Even when delegates disagreed with each other on the Convention issue, most of them welcomed
the recent appointment by the Human Rights Council of the Independent Expert on the rights of older
persons—a step proposed by Brazil and Argentina. The delegate of Brazil also reminded participantsthat not so long ago the negotiations on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities,
adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2006 and now ratified by 147 countries, had faced similar
opposition from several delegations, and many of the arguments presented against it a decade ago
also looked similar.

Welcoming in principle the holding of the fifth session of the Open-ended Working Group andemphasizing its usefulness as an opportunity to keep discussion alive and exchange more on regionaland national matters and efforts, the opponents of the proposed new legal instruments argued, inthe words of the European Union representative, that “the whole spectrum of internationallyrecognized human rights standards and principles naturally also covers and protects older persons
without discrimination”, while many issues discussed at the fifth session -- such as violence, care,and financial issues -- were also addressed by the current international legal framework. In that light,
the proposed approach to the Convention controversy by the opponents was similar to the arguments
put forward by that group of representatives a year ago: even though it was important to discuss theimplementation and protection gaps, those existing gaps “are not of a normative nature”, andtherefore, did not require a new legal instrument such as a Convention; the most important approach
Page 8 of 11was “to focus on a determined application of existing standards”.

In the same vein, the delegate of Canada expressed concerns that a new convention might
duplicate the work being done by other conventions and might apply ”more pressure on a monitoring
system that is already overburdened”. The delegates of the pro-Convention camp voiced strong
disagreement with those arguments. El Salvador speaking on behalf of the cross-regional “Group of
Friends of Older Persons” established during the previous, fourth session of the OEWG, stated that“the non-binding character of the existing dedicated regime makes its fulfillment impossible andmakes those instruments nothing but a declaration of principles subject to the will and judicial
frameworks of each State”.

In a nutshell, the above disagreements on the feasibility of the Convention reflected not only
different regional priorities and different perspectives but also a very different understanding why
such a Convention might be important (or not) as a legal instrument. Trust in national judicial systems
as the ultimate guarantor of the rights of older persons was also clearly a point of disagreement.

Sergei Zelenev, Executive Director, ICSWFor more details, please go to:

http://social.un.org/ageing-working-group/fifthsession.shtml

ICSW General Assembly Meeting
The ICSW General Assembly meeting took place in Melbourne, Australia on 12 July 2014 in

the wake of the Joint World Conference on Social Work and Social Development. The delegates tothe ICSW General Assembly considered the most acute issues contained in the report on the state of
the global organization submitted to the General Assembly by ICSW President Michael Cichon, paying
particular attention to the issues of membership, budget structure, resource mobilization and thecoordination of long-term plans with immediate priorities. The need for financial sustainability wasemphasized.

The Executive Director, Sergei Zelenev, presented the Annual Report for the period January 1
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to December 31, 2013, highlighting several key areas of ICSW's work, including activities on social
welfareandsocialdevelopment;

networking

andpolicy innovations;communication

withstakeholders; as well as regional level activities and partnerships. Revamping and updating of the
global ICSW website along with improving work on the regional newsletters published by ICSW wereseen by the delegates as important steps in increasing the profile and relevance of the organization
globally and regionally.

The General Assembly expressed its strong appreciation for the current work of ICSW staff,
and also expressed gratitude to the ICSW representatives who had participated in the preparation of
the Joint World Conference in Melbourne, serving on the International Steering Committee and theInternational Programme Committee, contributing to a very successful outcome of the Conference.
Professor Heung Bong Cha, the President of the ICSW- North East Asia Region, updated the meetingon the preparations for the next global conference to be convened on 27-30 June 2015 in Seoul, theRepublic of Korea.

The General Assembly concluded its work with election of Mrs. Mirtha Sosa Crevoisier(Uruguay) as a vice president of the ICSW.



Useful resources and links

The Overseas Development Institute, UK, recently published an independent study on the political
economy of four East African countries: Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda. The focus of thereport called East African prospects and authored by David Booth, Brian Cooksey, Frederick GolobaMutebi and Karuti Kanyinga is on modalities of support to the development of productive sectors in
the above mentioned countries of the East African Community, including linkages between politicaland economic power, issues in the governance of economic growth, and prospects and risks in the
new and medium-term future.

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For more details, please go to:
http://www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odiassets/publications-opinion-files/8945.pdf
The Agewell Foundation, an India-based think tank and advocacy center, recently released a study
on the issue of the rights of older persons considered in the context of Indian realities (Human rightsof older people in India: A Reality Check, July 2014). The conclusions of the authors are sobering:
despite various laws, policies and schemes for the welfare and empowerment of older persons,violations of the human rights of the elderly are on the rise. “Though the majority of older persons
are financially independent in old age, they live a life full of elder abuse, age discrimination andageism” (p.41). The authors stress that, due to the fact that “old age” is being treated “like a curse”,
the voice of the elderly often remained unheard and their visibility in the public life was low.

For more details:
http://social.un.org/ageing-workinggroup/documents/fifth/AgewellFoundationHumanRightsofOlderPeopleinIndia.pdf
The content of this Global Newsletter may be freely reproduced or cited provided the source isacknowledged. Views do not necessarily represent policies of ICSW.
Newsletter Editor: Sergei Zelenev, Executive Director
Address: ICSW, 5700 Arlington Ave., Bronx, New York, 10471 (US Office)Phone: +1 347-526- 4893,
E-mail: szelenev@icsw.org, icsw@icsw.org
Website www.icsw.org;
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