By Lorena Vázquez, Country Director THP-México
On June 20 and 21, the C20 Summit in Melbourne, Australia took place at the University of Melbourne’s law school. This is the second year that a summit is formally held where Global Civil Society gets together to discuss the issues that have been set as a priority by the countries and the G20 agenda. In 2009, the G20 adopted the Framework for Strong, Sustainable and Balanced Growth with the purpose of avoiding future crisis, by restoring confidence and global growth. In order to successfully accomplish this, the G20 leaders must work together with all development actors to address the problem through a comprehensive approach. Therefore, there are different formal groups such as Private sector (B20), Labor (L20), Youth (Y20), Civil Society (C20) and Think Tanks (T20) to influence the agenda.
The Civil Society has been addressing the importance of tackling inequality, food security, governance and anti-corruption, inclusive development and climate change. In this Summit it was highlighted the lack of political will from Australian presidency to prioritize Climate Change. Civil Society raised the critical importance of climate change being a stand-alone agenda and was stated that G20 decisions need to be citizen focused, advance transparency and tax reform, and that country action plans should have clear targets and achievements monitored. Finally, it was addressed the importance that civil society is at the table to help ensure that the G20 acts in accordance with good governance, upholding international law and standards in its decision-making.
The Hunger Project in the C20
For The Hunger Project this is a strategic platform to shape the international agenda and keep promoting that food security is guaranteed from a holistic approach rather than just only from an economical perspective and gender equality as a key success factor. This is our third year in a row participating influencing the agenda. While in Los Cabos Summit we achieved that Food Security and Nutrition (especially in the first 1,000 days) was put in the agenda, this year in particular, we highlighted the critical role of the small scale farming in food security and the impact of climate change. Small-scale food farmers can play a key role in food security as well as sustainable agricultural production, as agro-ecological farming systems can provide the locally-tailored, knowledge-intensive environmental services required to build vibrant, sustainable food systems and restore the degraded natural environment. G20 nations must invest in long-term, landscape-level strategies that restore the environment while empowering small-scale farmers to adapt to climate change.