Farmers' Rights related to Agrobiodiversity as a Means of Poverty Alleviation: Strategies of Civil Society Organisations

This post-doctoral project examines conditions for effective implementation of the provisions on farmers' rights in the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA), which is crucial for maintaining the global plant g enetic heritage and for poverty alleviation. The focus is on strategies of Civil Society Organisations (CSO), as these are central actors in many developing countries, pushing for and shaping policies on farmers' rights, and initiating projects for the pu rpose. It is vital to identify the patterns of CSO influence that contribute to the formulation and implementation of policies and programmes for the effective realisation of farmers' rights. In this project, the influence of CSOs on these processes will be analysed in three developing countries where progress in farmers' rights has been achieved: India, the Philippines, and Zambia. The achievements will be analysed with regard to their effectiveness in terms of the realisation of farmers' rights combine d with their relevance for poverty alleviation, before the influence of CSOs on these results will be analysed in detail. The patterns of CSO influence will be identified and the conditions for these patterns determined as basis for an analysis of the sco pe for generalisation with regard to other developing countries. Whereas research on regime implementation has focused on industrialised countries, CSO studies have been anchored in civil society literature. This project seeks to bridge the two bodies of theory in a development context. For civil society research it is important to understand the influence of international regimes, and for regime implementation research it is crucial to grasp civil society theory. The project will contribute to theory de velopment in both fields, while at the same time being instrumental for policy makers and CSOs in developing countries, for the Governing Body of the ITPGRFA and for donors in the North.