By Agnes Tjindjo
Namibia Rural Women Assembly hosted a peaceful celebration on 25 April in Oshana region Ongwendiva constituency. The event brought together peasant from around the even was open to all peasants and members of the public in rural areas were close to 80 members of rural women assembly attendant the event and got a chance to express themselves in asking and getting clarity from the presenters sharing with them to understand and fight for their rights as peasants, government officials from Ministry of agriculture directorate of land reform, directorate of Directorate Agriculture Plant Extension and Engineering Services and Ministry of environment directorate of wildlife and national packs all are head of Oshana region present at the event had awareness and presentations on their services and its procedures in their relevant offices members of the public were given a full right to listen and contribute …questions from the members of the public were well taken and clearly answered with due respect especially the land reform presentation was mostly challenged with questions that was later cleared
The Namibia Rural Assembly as larger representative of the peasants have developed a strategic plan on how to use the UNDROP declaration to fights and advocate on number of issues affecting the rural women and all other working in rural areas (Peasants). The assembly further have taken note that the COVID-19 crisis has had further detrimental impacts on women, peasants, agricultural workers, and indigenous peoples, hence the implementation of UNDROP by our assembly offers solutions to respond to the crisis by supporting small-scale food producers and local food systems, instead of relying on the industrial food system and by doing so pushing those groups, even more so than before, into hunger and malnutrition.
Several articles of the UNDROP aim to respond to the multiple human rights violations suffered by our members and other groups classified as peasants. Our assembly aims to use these articles including ARTICLES 15,17,19 and 25 on the right to land and other natural resources. These provisions also define the rights to food, food sovereignty, water, housing, participation, information, freedom of expression, Education and training, access to justice, and environment.
had presentations right after the NRWA chairperson presentation and submission of community demands that comes out of our last year awareness action.Our government stands with implementing UNDROP even through the process is very slow and done wrongly steps are not properly followed …The NRWA invited all the line ministries the ones that turns up were those ones. The invitation was done at the regional level, so office invited was the ones specifically that operates in Oshana Region.
UNDROP awareness workshop held in 2023
Training objective were based on the recognition that many opportunities exist within Namibia for the socio-economic upliftment, however marginalized groups such as women living in rural areas are often left behind. These women often have inadequate access to such opportunities due to number of reasons such economic, cultural, limiting administrative procedures and lack of information. Thus, the assumedly saw fit to prioritized first advocacy in food security. Advocating for agrarian reform and the recognition of a peasants as rights holders was adopted as the main object of the training, that further aimed to.
- Raise awareness on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and People working in rural areas at grass level.
- Identify opportunities and stakeholders to address key factors hindering effective implementation of livelihood programme and make recommendations for sustained social change.
- Conduct an exercise to map existing policies, standards, guidelines, activities, resources and capacities within the United Nations and the multilateral system to identify opportunities and gaps.
- Develop the capacities and the understanding of government officials Peasants, civil society, and stakeholders; and
- Support the participation of Peasants in any social, economic, or political processes that affect them.
