On 16 September, African social movements came together to discuss the upcoming United Nations Food Systems Summit (UNFSS), which takes place on the 23 September. On this day, the African Union (AU) will be presenting an African “common position”.

As social movements in Africa we reject both the UNFSS and the AU’s position, which allegedly represents all of us Africans, as further entrenchment of the corporate capture of our food systems.

We launched an open letter that details why we reject the AU’s “common position” and critiques the lack of truly consultative and participatory processes that led to its creation. To date, over 150 organisations have signed on to endorse this letter. We were able to analyse the position only because a draft July version was leaked to civil society. You can read this draft here.

You can watch the full event here: https://youtu.be/kA–SJdUqdc and highlights of the event here: https://youtu.be/fIZBES7rxKU

Our September event follows on from a previous joint event which took place on the 27 July, during the global UNFSS counter-mobilisation, while the pre-summit was being held. There we launched the African common position statement, which outlines why we reject the UNFSS.

You can view the 27 July event here: https://youtu.be/cAUKMuyEwrI

For more information on the global counter mobilisation please visit foodsystems4people, where you can also sign on to the global declaration.