Common purpose for collective influence in Guatemala
Building a coalition for a just and sustainable agriculture & food system
Overview
In a critical moment of potential policy reform for Guatemala, CoRe is supporting an emergent network ofcivil society organizations to develop a systems change strategy for a more just and sustainable agrifoodsystemto improve rural livelihoods.
To combat challenges such as environmental degradation, poverty, food insecurity, and systemic inequality, civil society leaders seek to build policy influence at the national and local levels. To achieve this, they have coalesced around a grounded environmental governance reform effort with support from CGIAR’s Climate Resilience Initiative.
To support the initiative’s policy transformation work in Guatemala, CoRe is leveraging its expertise in systems change analysis and action planning in the domain of natural resources and resilient rural livelihoods.
““This is a key moment for the country. At the global level, we are confronting serious challenges, and Guatemala is no exception.””
Partnering to capture a window of opportunity
As part of its systems change approach, CoRe is working with the CGIAR Climate Resilience Initiative to support a network of nearly 20 organizations, called the Red Bejuco, or Bejuco Network, in developing joint action plans and evaluation strategies to pursue a common vision for agrifood system reform in Guatemala.
The group of organizations, brought together under a process designed to bolster so-called “disruptive seeds” of citizen-led innovation, joins together the expertise of Indigenous authorities, community leaders, agricultural producers, and social entrepreneurs. The goal of the collaboration is to advance a reform agenda that addresses underlying institutional constraints and power dynamics shaping opportunities available to smallholder producers and communities in rural Guatemala.
Taking advantage of the momentum surrounding a new reform-oriented presidency, this marks the first time in nearly a generation that many civil society organizations see a meaningful opportunityto substantively engage in policy dialogue with an administration that has expressed a commitment to inclusive environmental governance and rural livelihoods. As it evolves, the emergent network has ambitions to boost and focus the voices of civil society organizations so that they can effectively influence government policy and private sector practices related to the agrifood system in Guatemala.
““This work gives us the opportunity to influence the national policy agenda. We see that we can truly change things in our country and how we can influence government, as we now have the collective experience of each of the organizations that is represented in the network.” ”
Speaking with a unified voice to shift policy and practice
To support the emergent network as it seeks to concentrate and amplify the priorities of indigenous [MOU1] authorities and smallholder producers, CoRe has provided systems-change process tools to help the network build an effective working structure and develop action plans that confront the social, economic, and environmental challenges facing rural communities in Guatemala.
Within CoRe’s theory of change[MOU1] , this illustrates the progress CoRe’s partnership was able to help realize in both strengthening capacity for multi-stakeholder collaboration and helping an emergent network of organizations to consolidate action plans as a novel coalition to influence shifts in policy and practice.
Because this coalition bridges groups working separately on tenure security and land rights alongside those working on agroecological production and equitable market access, it represents a governance innovation with clear potential for impact at national scale.
““We are deeply thankful for this support to the network. These efforts have enabled us to develop a structure that will allow us to go out and publicly demand change.” ”
Outcomes to Date
Over the course of nine months through March 2024, CoRe has supported the Bejuco Network to: [MOU1]
Consolidate an effective organizational structure for the network’s ongoing collaboration;
Design near term, concrete action plans derived from the network’s broader, shared visions of change;
Identify and develop strategies for engaging with external stakeholders in both the public and private sector as part of the network’s push for durable institutional change;
Devise a grounded learning, monitoring and evaluation framework to help the group track its progress and refine its strategies for influencing change
In the months following our support to the network, it has achieved key markers of progress towards systems change, such as:
• Influencing the Ministry of the Environment to conduct an ongoing study of water quality in areas affected by mining activity in the Olopa municipality
• Initiating a pilot project that provides healthy produce to schools in the Momostenango municipality supporting both child nutrition and local agricultural producers
““We have agreed to create a network that represents us, that permits us to address agriculture in a way that reflects the value of family agriculture through agroecology, and that allows us to present clear solutions so that Congress and the Presidency will work to ensure food and nutritional security.””
Learning across borders
Based on its efforts to support the network in Guatemala, CoRe has also provided early insights to CGIAR on learning, monitoring, and evaluation for bottom-up policy transformation efforts more broadly. These insights are feeding into ongoing discussions within CGIAR about how to both support policy transformation, as well as how to track the effectiveness of such efforts in multiple countries in Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia.
These insights are contributing to a broader, practice-oriented discourse on multi-scale innovation within the field of learning, monitoring and evaluation. Specifically, we focus on understanding demonstrated change in the effectiveness of individual organizations, the added value from increased connectivity and collaboration among them, and the resulting shifts at the systems level that they influence jointly.
As this network of experts continues to build partnerships, refine its strategy, and find allies, CoRe will continue to connect learnings from this network to inform parallel efforts addressing policy and practice across countries and regions.
Contributing to the SDGs
By supporting a coalition of civil society actors and social entrepreneurs to build influence for policy reform, CoRe’s collaboration helps set the stage for ongoing policy advocacy in support of rural livelihoods and inclusive natural resource governance in Guatemala.
Our work with the network has focused on key areas for impact, including:
Agroecology, community nutrition, food sovereignty and security, contributing to goals of No Poverty (SDG 1) and Zero Hunger (SDG 2)
Sustainable food production, agroforestry solutions, market linkages and economic empowerment contributing to goals of Responsible Consumption and Production (SDG 12), Climate Action (SDG 13) and Life on Land (SDG 15)
Improved water quality and management, and climate-smart production practices that reduce chemical inputs, contributing to Clean Water and Sanitation (SDG 6)
Strengthened local institutions, national networks, and inclusive environmental governance practices, advancing Reduced Inequality (SDG 10), Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions (SDG 16) and Partnerships for the Goals (SDG 17)
“This collaboration brings new innovative approaches that will cure and heal the earth. I believe this is fundamental to be able to defend the little we have left of our planet. We call the earth “mother”, because it gives us food and water. Therefore, we do not own her; rather, we are part of her. ”
What’s next
CoRe is continuing to support the Bejuco Network to build its influence with national agencies responsible for land policy, rural development and agricultural extension, and with legislative bodies such as Senate working groups.
In addition, CoRe is supporting network members to gather evidence on outcomes they’ve targeted in their joint action plans, including policy reform, institutional strengthening and reorientation of government agencies, and building markets for sustainable production.
Soon, CoRe aims to link network members in cross-country and cross-regional exchange of strategies and lessons learned, including with regional groups such as the Latin America Model Forests Network and the Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests.