All published articles in English.
Mayans in Guatemala continue to deal with discrimination 24 years after a violent civil war.
Photo: Flickr, by Daniel Mennerich
Av: Alice Antoniou
Guatemala continues to face challenges remaining from the Guatemalan Civil War, including high levels of poverty and inequality. Anne Kraemer, Executive Director of Wuqu’ Kawoq, shares how this manifests in the Mayan people’s difficulties in accessing adequate healthcare services.
Human Rights Defenders and ESMAD police in Medellín. Colombian national protests have been going on since April. Foto: Humano Salvaje, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Av: María Alejandra Moreno Jaramillo
In April the biggest protests in the modern history of Colombia took place. Since then there have been over 3000 cases of police brutality and 43 victims of homicides committed by the police. People protest against a whole system that does not protect life but privatizes and sectorizes it. Finding peace is something that can’t wait any longer. Action needs to be taken now, argues María Alejandra Moreno Jaramillo, project leader for Multicultural Sweden.
The lack of knowledge to respect nature and discrimination against minorities have created great hunger and poverty challenges. Photo: Samuel Vigier, Flickr
Av: Claire Coviaux och Maria Malmsten
Rural development is the process of life quality improvement and economic growth of rural populations in developing countries. It reduces local poverty and hunger by addressing many multi-sectoral needs including education, health, agriculture, and natural resources. The concept first appeared in the 1992 UN Agenda 21 – Chapter 14. Its major influence in the international […]
Many people see rural areas as non-economical; however, the Taiwanese government has declared 2019 as Taiwan’s Regional Revitalisation Year to make a change. Photo: Pixabay
Av: Yi-Chia Chen
Regional revitalisation is a concept originated from Japan in 2012. Since Taiwan is facing similar problems as Japan, the Taiwanese government also decides to adopt this concept to attract people to move to rural areas. Instead of focusing on redevelopment, revitalisation comes to play an important role.
The proposal of the European Parliament is aimed to reduce environmental destruction and to increase human rights protection in the supply chain. Photo: Rainforest Rescue 2014/Flickr
Av: Aarne Hakomäki och Stefanie Scharmann
On 27 January 2021, the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament (EP) adopted a draft for a European supply chain law. The draft proposes strict regulations of the environmental standards and human rights within the value chains of companies.
3 maj, 2021, English, Magazine, News article
Global agribusiness continues to grow with harmful consequences for smallholder farmers and rural communities. Photo: Zonc_Photos/Pixabay.
Av: Sanna Honkaniemi
Land grabs facilitated by multinational corporations, foreign investors and local governments in a pursuit for agribusiness have been escalating during the last decade. Huge acquisitions of farmland have led to violent displacements of rural populations. Although reports of the practice are not as recurrent in the media, the problem is far from over.
3 maj, 2021, English, Magazine, News article
The northernwestern Esmeraldas Province, a highly marginalised and invisibilized region, is home to the Chachi, Awá, and Épera Indigenous peoples, traditional Afro-descendant communities, and Mestizo people. Photo: Julianne Hazlewood
Av: Eleonora Moen och Leni Lindemann
Palm oil companies are detrimentally impacting rural livelihoods and biodiversity in northwestern Ecuador by extracting resources and polluting ancestral lands and rivers. Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities are particularly vulnerable to exploitation and health hazards posed by these companies. As an act of resistance, the communities, supported by the organisation Roots & Routes IC, have filed the world’s first constitutionally-based Rights of Nature Lawsuit to demand justice.
Claire van Enk created Farm to Feed Kenya to connect farmers and people suffering from hunger. Photo: Micky Schepers-Farm to Feed Kenya
Av: Maria Malmsten
The paradox of hunger, food loss and waste is a global issue. All around the world, a third of all produced food never reaches the consumer. Claire van Enk has created Farm to Feed Kenya to bring about change in these issues, while striving for a healthier planet.
Day farmers outside Trichy, Photo: Klara Bengtsson.
Av: Klara Bengtsson
FUF Lund Magazine has interviewed Birgitta Göransson Liste, the chairperson of the Swallows India Bangladesh to hear about work, civil society and the role of rural- and community development. The organisation has been working with rural development in India and Bangladesh for the last 60 years. One area of focus has been small-scale organic agriculture.
Since 2006, Instituto Agroecologico Latinoamericano, IALA, has trained campesinos, small-scale farmers, in agroecology in Latin America through popular education. This institution plays an important role in resisting industrial agriculture all over the region and provides a different perspective on rural development.