Sri Lanka is undergoing one of the most complex economic recoveries in its history. The country’s financial collapse in 2022 was precipitated by a toxic mix of unsustainable borrowing, poor fiscal management, and external shocks.
Mass protests erupted under the banner of Aragalaya, a broad-based citizens’ movement demanding accountability, economic justice, and an end to political corruption.
Musa Sowe, Second Vice President of ROPPA (Network of Farmers’ and Agricultural Producers’ Organizations of West Africa) and Africa representative in the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC), has long been at the forefront of grassroots agroecological movements. Speaking from the Global Forum for Food Sovereignty in Kandy, Sri Lanka, he shares how agroecology has reshaped lives in his community, from farming practices to power structures.
This interview with Martín Drago, coordinator of the Food Sovereignty program at Friends of the Earth International and member of the global steering committee, highlights what is at stake in this historic moment. For Martín, Nyéléni in Sri Lanka is not an endpoint but a milestone — a space to validate and advance a joint political agenda that dismantles oppression, resists fascism and neoliberalism, and puts democracy and the rights of peoples at the center. It is a call to deepen convergence across movements and regions, to forge hope in times of crisis, and to build the power needed for systemic transformation from the ground up.
In our latest episode, we chat with Dražen Šimleša from Croatia’s Green Network of Activist Groups and RIPESS Europe about what a just economy really means today—and how it’s already being built. From fair wages and democratic workplaces to sustainable local economies and global solidarity, Dražen gives us a grounded, practical view of how solidarity economy works in real life.
Food is more than what ends up on our plates—it carries culture, identity, and the wisdom of generations. At the heart of the 3rd Nyéléni Global Forum, delegates from all over the world gather to share stories, strategies, and visions for a just and sustainable food system. In this conversation, we hear from Mariann Bassey, who represents the African region and the Respect and Diversity group at the 3rd Nyéléni Global Forum, about how these principles connect to food sovereignty, the power of communities to resist corporate control, and the ways traditional knowledge continues to shape the fight for nourishing, culturally rooted food.
On the doorstep of the 3rd Nyéléni Global Forum, to be held in the city of Kandy, in the heart of Sri Lanka, Paola Romero, Director of FIAN Colombia, political scientist, and expert in gender, feminism, and food sovereignty, shares her reflections in an interview. In it, she explains how they have historically worked to advance the human right to adequate food and nutrition, a commitment intertwined with the promotion of food sovereignty and agroecology—fundamental pillars to ensure justice and sustainability in food systems.
From Kurdistan to Palestine, from resisting extractivism to building feminist media, Yıldız Temürtürkan of the World March of Women shares powerful stories of self-determination, global solidarity, and the fight for peace with justice. Women on the frontlines are turning pain into action, and action into change.
In this multimedia article, we explore how agribusiness—focused on generating profits rather than feeding people—causes hunger and disease. The dominant food system, controlled by large corporations, endangers the lives of marginalized communities through the mass production of ultra-processed foods and the indiscriminate use of agrochemicals.
For many of us, the word ‘commons’ will bring up associations to natural resources as land, and perhaps to earlier times when the commoners, the lay people as peasants were called, were allowed to use the commons to find firewood and gather food. In Europe, the enclosure of those commons with the onset of privatisation in the 18th century put an end to this. The end of these communal forms of agriculture led to the precarization of women’s lives in particular as it destroyed their means of livelihood and weakened their social power. But the commons can actually be referring to so much more, in fact to a paradigm shift taking us in the very opposite direction of capitalism.
In this interview, Saúl Vicente Vázquez highlights the urgent struggle of Indigenous peoples to defend their lands as a vital act of protecting the environment and sustaining life itself. He emphasizes the inseparable connection between territorial rights and environmental justice, calling for collective action to safeguard Indigenous territories against exploitation and destruction. Saúl’s testimony underscores the need for global recognition of Indigenous sovereignty as essential to a just and dignified future for all.
You must be logged in to post a comment.