Statement from International Seminar on International Seminar on the Negative Impacts of World Bank held in Washington DC April 15-17, 2002 with representatives of Via Campesina and beyond.

Final Declaration
Washington, DC
April 17, 2002

We are members of peasant, research, environmental, religious and human rights organizations that have met in Washington, DC from April 15-17. We share the struggle for a world and a society in which the guiding principle will be the human being and the full enjoyment of all human rights for all people and communities; in which the right to land of rural communities is recognized; the food sovereignty of all countries is guaranteed; the environmental sustainability of the planet is preserved and the cultural integrity of all peoples is assured.

Alarmed by the intensity with which the land policies promoted by the World Bank and other international cooperation agencies are depriving the poorest rural people of their means of livelihood, we have analyzed various aspects of these policies in light of our own testimonies and experiences. We have found that the Bank imposes the same programs on innumerable countries, without regard for their history, local realities and customs of production and land use. Due to their impact, we conclude that the World Bank's land policies basically seek to make land into a commodity, and in the end, place it at the service of the interests of international trade and transnational corporations. These policies are not the agrarian reform that social movements have demanded throughout their historic struggle, and therefore will not lead to substantial improvements in the living standards of the poor, nor will they lead to full development. By their nature land markets do not help the needy, the poor. Markets respond to money, not to human needs.

Specifically, we find that:

• The land administration projects of the Bank - including surveys, mapping, cadastres, registries and the granting of individual, alienable titles - while they try to address long-standing demands by various rural groups for security of tenure, are designed primarily to create the conditions for "functioning land markets," and all too frequently result in a massive or on-going sell-off of land, in the re-concentration of property and in an increase in conflicts inside our communities, as we have seen in the case of Thailand.
• The privatization of public or communal lands leads to the re-concentration of land in the hands of large private landowners, and to the loss of land-use rights by some or all of the members of our communities. The privatization of communal lands undercuts community strategies of survival, cultural cohesion and mechanisms of cooperation, leading to greater impoverishment.
• So-called "market-based land reform," "market-led land reform," "market-assisted land reform," or "community-based land reform" is another attempt to evade the true redistribution of landed property and creates more problems than it solves. Our experiences in countries like South Africa, Brazil, Colombia and Guatemala indicate that these programs, by their very nature, will never be able to create conditions to overcome the landlessness of millions of families. The programs have excluded the poorest of the poor for not meeting required preconditions and traditionally marginalized groups like rural women, and cannot be applied to indigenous communities. The land which is offered for sale is of the poorest quality, and landowners typically take advantage of these programs to get rid of marginal lands or those far removed from market centers. In other cases the land offered comes from medium or small landowners in bankruptcy due to the freedom of imports, and as a result the programs do not have redistributive effects, leaving large landed estates intact. The non-integrated nature of the programs means that the productive projects of the beneficiaries fail, because they often lack the resources needed for food security, working capital, basic services and technical assistance. In all of the countries analyzed in the seminar, the great majority of the beneficiaries are behind in the payment of their credits. So, massive indebtedness and the abandonment or the loss of the land to pay off the loan will end up intensifying the poverty of the few beneficiary families. In addition to inviting corruption and political clientelism, these programs have been used to undercut agrarian reform policies based on the expropriation or forfeiture of land held by large landowners, and to distract, undermine, divide, and curb the movements of landless peasants.
• Programs of "productive associations" or "strategic alliances" recently supported by the Bank are of grave concern because they tend to subordinate peasants, communities, and their lands to the service of large landowners and transnational corporations. To presuppose a level playing field between large and small "partners" is to chain the small to the strategies of the large.

In light of this evidence, we demand:

Of the World Bank:

• The immediate end of its current land policies and their replacement with policies based on the right to land and food;
• The publication of all the documents and information available on the projects.

Of governments:

• The decisive participation of peasants, other popular sectors and their organizations in the planning, management and implementation of economic programs in general, and of rural development and agrarian reform programs in particular.
• Programs of land redistribution by means of expropriation with or without compensation and forfeiture of quality land, in which the State assumes its responsibilities;
• Fully integrated policies of support for the small farm economy, which include macroeconomic aspects, marketing, technical assistance, credit, processing of products, protection of national production, and respect for the integrity of culture and environmental sustainability.
• Legal protection and the creation of agricultural tribunals to resolve agrarian conflicts;
• Formulation of policies based on respect for human rights and the principles of social justice and gender equality, rather than on market forces.
• We call upon social organizations and civil society to join in the defense of agrarian reform and the struggle for the principles here expressed.

Washington, DC, April 17, 2002

Actionaid - Brasil
ADC - Alianza Democratica Campesina, El Salvador
ANUC-UR / Associacion Nacional de Usuarios Campesinos - Unidad e Reconstrucion, Colômbia
APR - Animação Pastoral Rural, Brasil
BIC - Bank Information Center, USA
Bretton Woods Project, England
CECCAM, México
CNA - Coordinador Nacional Agrario, Colômbia
COCOCH, Honduras
CNOC - Coordinadora Nacional de Organizaciones Campesinas, Guatemala
CONGCOOP - Coordinadora Nacional de ONG y Cooperativas, Guatemala
CPT / Comissão Pastoral da Terra, Brasil
Environmental Defense, USA
FENSUAGRO / Federacion Nacional Sindical Unitária Agropecuária, Colômbia
FIAN - Foodfirst Information and Action Network, Germany
Food First Institute for Food and Development, USA
Franciscan and Dominicans International, Switzerland
Franciscan Network, USA
Franciscan Washington Office, USA
Global Land Reform Policy Center, Zimbabwe
INESC - Instituto de Estudos Sócio-Econômicos, Brasil
La Via Campesina, Honduras
Land Research and Action Network, Brazil/South Africa/Thailand/USA
LPM / Landless Peoples' Movement, South Africa
Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, USA
MST / Movimento Nacional dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra, Brasil
NLC - National Land Comittee, South Africa
Nkuzi Development Association, South Africa
PER / Project of Ecological Recovery, Tailand
Rede Brasil sobre Instituições Financeiras Multilaterais, Brasil
Rede Social de Justiça e Direitos Humanos
Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights, USA
War on Want, England