Training tools built to advocate link between economic policies and human rights
15 February 2009 9:56 pm

ESCR-Net concluded its workshop "Bridging Trade, Investment, Finance and Human Rights: Pilot Project on the Agricultural Sector" in Bangkok, on 30 January 2009. The five-day workshop aimed to create tools to advocate the link between human rights and economic policies in agriculture.

Fifteen people from Americas, Africa and Asia attended the workshop, which was hosted by ESCR-Net.  FORUM-ASIA is a member of ESCR-Net. This is the first international workshop of the network.

Realising how trade and finance policies in agriculture influence human rights, the participants discussed how to build a framework to link them. They developed training tools to advocate the issue, and will test them at both national and international levels.

The workshop also presented case studies of how human rights perspective has been used to analyse economic policies on agriculture in Argentina, Ecuador, Egypt, Indonesia and Norway

ESCR-Net plans to organise a follow-up meeting in the coming six months, in order to share the outcome of the training tools and ideas to advocate the issue at national and international levels.

(Photo courtesy of Keren Su/Corbis)