Thursday 9 February 2023
European Parliament -ASP1G2- Brussels
The foreign debt trap, unresolved consequences of the covid19 pandemic, increasing global militarisation, the climate emergency, the food crisis: these are all geopolitical tensions that although acknowledged by most people, neither have their concrete consequences at the core of the debate nor are they seen through the lens of these who mostly endure them. Thinking together about this global moment of crises from and with the Global South could be a modest but determined way to contribute to building bridges and alternatives for the peoples both in the South as in Europe.
This initiative aims to promote coherent development policies that look at these crises holistically and structurally, addressing their root causes and the actors that benefit from them—namely, transnational corporations and some states from the Global North. Structural intertwined crises call for structured and holistic responses. By offering perspectives coming from the Global South, this conference will expand our understanding of the crises and explore the different ways we can get out of them. We want to hear what the Global South says to think together alternatives and unite the movements around a solidarity pact for a better future for the peoples and the planet.
PROGRAMME
9h00 – 9h30 Welcoming, presentation and introduction: Miguel Urbán Crespo The Left coordinator in the DEVE and DROI committee
9h30 – 10h45
Dorothy Guerrero – Asia Europe People’s Forum-Global Justice now
Broulaye Bagayoko, CADTM Afrique secretary
Tarcísio Motta, PSOL Member of the Federal Parliament of Brazil
Morgan Ody, Via Campesina general coordinator
Rityusha Mani Tiwary, Assistant Professor, Shaheed Bhagat Singh College, University of Delhi, India
11h00 – 12h00 Discussion, questions and answers
12h00 – 12h30 Final remarks and conclusions
SPEAKERS
Dorothy Guerrero – Asia Europe People’s Forum-Global Justice nowBroulaye Bagayoko, CADTM Afrique secretary
Dorothy Guerrero is an internationalist with almost 30 years of experience in social movements and development work as a researcher/analyst, educator, organiser and campaigner. She is currently working as Head of Policy and Advocacy of Global Justice Now. She previously worked in the regional office of Focus on the Global South, an Asian regional think tank and campaign organisation based at the Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok where she set up and managed the China programme and later worked as regional coordinator of the climate and environmental justice programme from 2005 – 2014. Before that she had posts with Asienhaus in Germany, as programme coordinator and as a senior research associate with the Institute for Popular Democracy in the Philippines. She also worked as research consultant for Transnational Institute (TNI) and the African regional network Women in Mining (WoMin). She works on and writes about social justice and development issues, climate change, corporate power, China, migration and other related economic justice concerns from a radical pluralist Left perspective.
Broulaye Bagayoko, Secrétaire du CADTM Afrique
The CADTM’s main objective is the immediate and unconditional cancellation of public debt of countries of the Global South and the abandonment of structural adjustment policies. Despite their vast natural and human resources, the peoples of the Global South are being bled dry. In most countries, the amount spent each year in repayment of public debt comes to more than that spent on education, health, rural development and job creation all together. The debt relief initiatives of recent years have been a mockery, as the stringent conditions they come with do more harm than good to the alleged “beneficiaries”.
Mr. Bagayoko’s intervention will offer a Global South perspective on debt, focusing on how it affects African countries. He will show how the covid19 pandemic has especially reinforced the debt crisis demonstrating the detrimental effects structural reform programs coming from international financial institutions have on common goods and public policies. A development policy that wants to be effective shall address the debt issue and question the reforms imposed by the IMF.
Tarcísio Motta, PSOL Member of the Federal Parliament of Brazil
Brazil and the Amazon forest are one of the symbols of the climate crisis. Agribusiness and a predatory development model, which affects forest peoples and the entire planet at the same time, progressively destroy the Amazon forest, a unique biodiversity reserve and one of the most important global climate adjusting systems.
Despite pledges to fight climate change and deforestation, Brazil and the EU, if the EU-Mercosur free trade agreement is brought to life, it will push further deforestation and biodiversity loss in the name of profits.
The MP’s contribution will sustain possible and better alternatives to the current trade model based on food sovereignty, the defense of biodiversity and on a real commitment to fight climate change.
Morgan Ody, Via Campesina general coordinator
Via Campesina is an international farmers organization founded in 1993 in Mons, Belgium, formed by 182 organisations in 81 countries, “an international movement which coordinates peasant organizations of small and middle-scale producers, agricultural workers, rural women, and indigenous communities from Asia, Africa, America, and Europe”.
Via Campesina advocates for family-farm-based sustainable agriculture, and was the group that coined the term “food sovereignty”.La Vía Campesina carries out campaigns to defend farmer’s right to seeds, to stop violence against women, for agrarian reform, and generally for the recognition of the rights of peasants.
Rityusha Mani Tiwary, Assistant Professor, Shaheed Bhagat Singh College, University of Delhi, India
Rityusha Mani Tiwary is an Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Shaheed Bhagat Singh College- University of Delhi. She has a PhD from Chinese Studies Division, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. She holds the Young Sinologist Award by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, China and International Visitors Leadership Program Fellowship by the Department of State, US. She has also held Fellowships (in-residence) at the Politics and International Studies Department, University of Cambridge, the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences at Shanghai and German Institute of Global and Area Studies at Hamburg, Germany.
Her research interests include foreign policies of India and China; issues of peace, conflict and security in South Asia and East Asia. Her two forthcoming research works are: China and East Asian Regionalism: Origins and Dimensions of an Emerging Leadership and A Comparative Study of Power and Leadership Discourse in South Asia and East Asia. She is a contributor in the forthcoming volumes on Contemporary Indian Politics (Sage), Randhir Singh and Marxism in India (Aakar).