Indigenous food systems, agroecology and the Voluntary Guidelines on Tenure: a meeting between indigenous peoples and FAO

On the 2nd and 3rd February 2015, the FAO organized a technical meeting between indigenous peoples’ representatives and FAO staff. The meeting was attended by twenty indigenous peoples from the different socio-cultural region, including members of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII), political leaders, technical experts, indigenous food producers and traditional knowledge-holders. In addition, IFAD, the International Land Coalition (ILC), civil society and academia also attended the discussions.As a result of this meeting, the participants agreed on a series of actions which will shape a joint work plan, based on the main suggestions made for how FAO and indigenous peoples could collaborate in the short, medium and long term.

This report includes the work plan, identifying concrete steps that can be followed in relation to voluntary guidelines (the VGGT and the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication, known as SSF Guidelines), indigenous food systems and fisheries among others. Section II contains the key outcomes generated by the meeting, while Section III describes in a narrative manner the steps to follow for collaborative actions between FAO and indigenous peoples (summarized in Table 1 in Annex A, which also identifies focal points both from FAO and indigenous organizations for each action).