Building alliances to make policy respond to the true experts on the ground

By Rebecca Middleton, Executive Director, Alliance to End Hunger

In May 2015, I had the opportunity to visit a few remote farming communities near Choma, Zambia. It was there that I found some of the hardest working women in the world.

It is no secret that woman make up a majority of the agricultural workforce in Africa, as is the case in many other areas around the globe. However, many of the laws, policies, and institutions that govern agricultural development are forged in a capital that may as well be a world away.

I have spent most of my career as a practitioner of the inner-workings of policymaking in the United States - first as a senior legislative assistant for a U.S. Congressman, and then for a decade as a government relations expert at a lobbying firm. So when I visited those Zambian farms, and witnessed those women working with a hoe in their hands and a baby on their backs, I asked how these genuine professionals in small-scale farming could possibly have their voices heard at the policymaking level.

There is a lot of talk amongst food security and agriculture experts – especially within the NGO community – about how to ‘do development’ in a way that best benefits smallholder farmers around the world. Don’t get me wrong, there are genuine successes that incorporate participatory planning and community-centered development; but ultimately, sustainable long-term benefits need to be supported at a policymaking level, both nationally and globally.

Framers of the Sustainable Development Goals had the rural farmers in Zambia in mind during their formulation. In particular, SDG 2 calls for the elimination of hunger and malnutrition for everyone, and the equitable and sustainable increase of production and incomes for smallholder farmers. In the farms that I visited, I met the people who know what needs to happen to get this done.

So, how do we get these true experts in the field a voice at the policymaking table? There are civil society alliances that are starting to figure it out, and Zambia is no exception. In partnership with an organization call PELUM-Zambia, the Alliance to End Hunger is helping to jumpstart a coalition – the Zambia Alliance Against Hunger and Malnutrition (ZAAHM) – that amplifies national civil society voices in policymaking processes. ZAAHM has already built a coalition of 50+ organizations, and is now expanding its reach into rural areas to include more local organizations and farmer groups.

This model already has a good track record. The Civil Society Agriculture Network (CISANET) in Zambia’s next door neighbour, Malawi, engages with policymakers and relevant government ministries and agencies to amplify the voice of civil society in agriculture policy processes. Further, this national network collaborates with smaller community networks to help magnify community ideas and perspectives at the national level. These smaller networks are made up of a multitude of groups, including farmer organisations and co-ops, where smallholders can voice their opinions within a forum in which they know they will be heard. And so by working with and through local – and then national – networks, smallholder voices can be heard in larger policy discussions. The Alliance to End Hunger has cultivated fruitful partnerships with both ZAAHM and CISANET, as well as similar networks in Ghana, Tanzania, and Uganda.

And just as the SDGs are universal in nature, this model of networks and alliances is not only promising in the ‘developing’ world. Here in the United States, we are helping to build a network of ‘Hunger Free Community’ coalitions that assess their own local food security environment, plan ways to address gaps, and ultimately share their stories with other HFCs and at the national level.

These alliances, whether in Zambia, Malawi or here in the United States, empower elements of grassroots advocacy that can give the basic elements of society – the people of a community – a real voice in decisions made in Lusaka, Lilongwe, Washington, or Rome. By supporting these civil society networks, women like those I saw in Zambia have a real opportunity to gain some traction in policymaking. Let’s continue to build these alliances to make agriculture and food security policy truly responsive to those it is intended to help, and those who know what needs to be done.