Deadline: 7-May-23
The Heinrich Böll Foundation, represented through its offices in Rabat, Tunis, Ramallah and Beirut, welcomes applicants from the MENA region to apply for the 9th Regional Summer School that will take place from 29 July to 05 August 2023 in Jordan, under the title “It’s More than Just Food: Agroecology and Sustainable Agriculture towards Equitable and Justice-based Food Systems in the MENA Region”.
The School aims to provide young professionals from civil society, youth and community initiatives, activists and researchers a space to exchange, debate and learn about the multiple dimensions of food systems, the water-energy-food nexus and community-supported sustainable agricultural practices towards food sovereignty. Through inputs, group work sessions and field trips, participants will learn about the different perspectives regarding achievements, progress, constraints and shortcomings of food systems in the MENA region.
The Regional Summer School will bring together 25 young professionals from civil society, academia and private sector from different countries of the MENA region in order to
- strengthen their capacities to engage in sustainable approaches and solutions for food system management,
- promote regional networking and allow for an exchange of experiences, and
- Facilitate interdisciplinary learning experiences between stakeholders from different sectors and countries.
The sub-topics of this year’s School will be as follows:
- “The Politics of Food”: Current Global Food Systems, the Right to Food and International Law
- This session will critically analyze current global and MENA region food systems and supply chains from political, economic, health and environmental aspects and assess its impact on human rights. It will give an overview of international law and frameworks addressing the right to food including the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Additionally, it will address current food production trends and needs in the MENA region and examine legal frameworks for protection of small-scale farming and food sovereignty in general.
- Agroecology & Sustainable Agriculture: From Theory to Practice
- This session will explore agroecology, permaculture and other forms of sustainable agricultural practices as alternatives to large-scale monoculture. It will look into the political and socio-economic objectives of agroecology movements, their efforts to mobilize and spread their ideals and practices.
- Sustainable Resource Management & Alternative Models in the MENA Region
- This session will address integrated resource management and the water-energy-food nexus towards sustainable agricultural practices and the safeguarding of precious and dwindling resources in the MENA region. It will explore successful existing alternative food production and marketing models and how they may be strengthened. Participants will get the opportunity to meet leaders of initiatives, exchange experiences, discuss food production models that may be developed in the MENA region, and visit success stories in the field.
- Agriculture and the Climate & Biodiversity Crises
- This session will give participants a general overview on how current agricultural practices contribute to the climate and biodiversity crises, but also how sustainable agriculture, especially through local knowledge, can contribute to natural preservation and mitigating and adapting to climate change. It will look into current climate and biodiversity agreements and processes and the role of agriculture. Additionally, it will introduce participants to the global efforts of green groups and organizations around the world to combat the production and use of agrochemicals and fossil fuels.
- Movement Building & Governance
- This final session will also introduce participants to agroecology and food sovereignty movements from around the world, their work and future aims. The session will be an opportunity for participants to learn networking, alliance building, and campaigning skills and techniques. It will also tackle the means to address local governance bodies and holding duty-bearers accountable towards more participatory and inclusive forms of governance towards sustainable agriculture and food sovereignty.
The Regional Summer School
- The Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung organizes Regional Summer Schools to empower young change-makers and to spark debates on important current environmental issues. The Summer School will provide participants with interesting insights and different viewpoints from the region and offer an excellent platform for exchanging ideas and sharing experiences. The program promotes networking among civil society actors, researchers, and activists working in the fields of citizen participation and intervention in the urban space, local governance, sustainable development, climate action, gender and environment.
- Against this background, this year’s Summer School strives to develop a transdisciplinary socio-economic, environmental and political understanding of food systems in the MENA region. It aims to explore a collective approach, bringing together different perspectives and experiences to contribute to a regional debate and network towards food sovereignty and agoecology-oriented policies and practices.
- Moreover, the Summer School intends to address the topic of food systems from a governance lens as well as from the perspective of decentralized people-led actions, both of which are based on the principles of democratic participation, accountability, transparency, responsiveness, equity and inclusiveness. By doing so, hbs aims to address broader social, political, cultural and economic issues related to food systems that affect different social groups. One key dimension to understanding the complexity of food systems is gender. Accordingly, the Summer School will address the historical role of women’s involvement in agricultural production in the region and explore emancipatory models promoting for gender equality and gender-sensitive approaches to natural resource management and food production.
Eligibility Criteria
- Participants will be selected based on their expertise in related fields, their specific motivation to participate as well as according to a proportional representation of different countries and sectors. They are looking for engaged and motivated candidates from civil society, academia and activist groups working on different kinds of actions related to agriculture and food system management aiming for behavioral, social or political change.
- Eligible candidates should be between the ages of 23-38 and reside in one of the following MENA countries: Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, Tunisia, Morocco, Libya, Egypt, Algeria, Iraq and Syria.
For more information, visit Regional Summer School.