A better world is possible - Global Commons Institute

Copyright Bruce Nixon 2010. All rights reserved. This electronic copy is provided free for personal, non-commercial use only.
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and alter behaviours that spread the disease. This has trained 600,000 people. In 2004, Jean Holmes
founding president of the Hunger Project was appointed to serve on the UN Millennium Project Hunger
Taskforce. She used this opportunity to focus attention and launch a campaign to transform the way the
world ‘does’ development, recognising that bottom-up, gender-focussed strategies are the only viable way to
achieve the Millennium Goals on a sustainable basis. The Hunger Project works with their own Millennium
Project’s Country Directors in strategic action to achieve its aims.
Dr. Makanjuola Olaseinde Arigbede - In Search of Food Sovereignty
This description of his work draws on an article by Jocelyn Jones and Louis Loizou in their World Family Ning.
Food Sovereignty is central to the work of Dr Makanjuola Olaseinde Arigbede. I met him at a weekend event in
the Brecon Beacons, Walk Your Talk, organised by the Association of Sustainability Practitioners. He came to
my meeting about the need to change the global economic system. We saw eye-to-eye and became firm
friends. I saw a leader of profound integrity, great courage with a radical understanding of what is wrong with
the system as it affects ordinary and poor people all over the world
Dr. Olaseinde Arigbede, a medical doctor and neuroscientist, former postgraduate fellow of University College
Los Angeles chose to become a smallholder farmer in his native Nigeria thus discovering the hardships of the
poor, the challenges of farming, the resilience and innovative capacity of those who have tended the land for
millennia. In this way, he earned the credentials and insight to lead smallholder farmers in their struggles.
Olaseinde and Oladunni, his wife and partner, cultivate a beautiful farm of maize, pineapples, yam and
cassava, and much more.
They are joint National Coordinators of the United Small and Medium Scale Farmers’ Associations of Nigeria, a
peasant federation and umbrella organisation for civil society organisations, a “voice for the voiceless” with
branches in most of Nigeria’s 36 states, a strong Women’s Platform and a vigorous Youth Platform. In
December 2008 Students of USMEFAN, supported by their elders, organised and presented the Global Youth
Festival for Food Sovereignty at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. They celebrated with debates and
discussions, music and drumming and theatre. Students and farmers came on long treks from north, west and
east Nigeria.
World Family During a visit with Jocelyn Jones in Brighton, UK, the idea of forming World Family emerged.
World Family's focus is on developing collaborations with African farmers to avert the dangers of land grabs, agrofuels
and the patenting of life by genetically modifying peoples’ seeds. The underlying work is to support smallholder
farmers everywhere to produce food in a way that is ecologically sound, sustainable and fits in with their culture –
Food Sovereignty. This is only possible if many young people take up farming.
World Family links together farmers’ associations and connects them with interested people, advocacy
organisations and resources that free and do not bind them. Current membership is mostly from Africa, UK
and USA. It is essentially about people-to-people solidarity. Celebration through music, dance, theatre, film
and discussion is key.
World Family has grown to include two other ground-breaking schemes in Africa: Better World Cameroon
This community-based organisation focuses on training young people in bio-diversity conservation and natural
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