Partners

Abahlali baseMjondolo (people who stay in shacks) is a movement of shack dwellers. It began in 2005 with the Kennedy Road settlement protests against the sale of land to a local industrialist that had been promised by the local municipal councillor to shack dwellers for housing.

“Our movement was started in 2005 as a movement of the poor. From the beginning we worked to build the power of impoverished people in order to confront and defeat the oppression that we faced.”

Abahlali baseMjondolo’s call is for land, housing and dignity for shack dwellers, and it is now one of South Africa’s largest movements with 100,000 members and branches in over 80 informal settlement communities. It has won significant legal battles against evictions; supported land occupation communities as land reform from the ground-up; and engaged with authorities to secure basic services of water, electricity and sanitation for informal settlements.

ATTAC/CADTM Maroc is an action-oriented popular education movement, committed to the struggles in Morocco against capitalist globalisation and the domination of international financial institutions. ATTAC Maroc strives to be a space for critical reflection to understand the neoliberal assault on Moroccan people. ATTAC Maroc fights for a different vision of globalisation, far from any logic of isolationism, that is grounded in solidarity between peoples and based on social justice, democracy, dignity and sustainable development in a world that is not equated to a market. 

Most of its work is focused on debt, microcredit, extractivism, workers’ rights, trade justice, climate justice and food sovereignty. ATTAC Maroc is a founding member of the North African Network for Food Sovereignty.

The Bangladesh Agriculture Farm Labour Federation (BAFLF) is the national trade union federation for state-owned farms. BAFLF has over 100,000 members in state-owned agriculture research institutes, at the Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation, including cotton farms, sericulture farms, dairy farms and sugarcane farms. BAFLF campaigns for fair wages, employment guarantees, crop subsidies, farmers’ rights to land, seeds and other natural resources, and livelihood assistance for farmers and farm workers affected by the climate crisis. BAFLF is a strong advocate for food sovereignty, and opposes the corporate globalisation of agriculture.

Formed in 1989, CENSAT Agua Viva is Friends of the Earth’s member group in Colombia, and it seeks theoretical, political and technical alternatives to destructive models of development. CENSAT is an environmental justice organisation for communication, education, research and mobilisation, whose purpose is to strengthen and build the capacity for social and environmental actions of historically impoverished sectors in Colombia. Through democratic processes for organising, it seeks to expand knowledge, transform social and technical relations and the rewire the conditions of life, work and production that are adverse to health, the environment and the full realisation of humanity.

Central Única dos Trabalhadores (CUT) is the largest trade union federation in Brazil and Latin America, covering industries across manufacturing, infrastructure, food and public services. CUT began in the 1980s as part of a new unionism to overthrow the dictatorship in Brazil, and continued to fight neoliberalism into the 2000s, and then the anti-worker policies of the far-right government from 2019–2023. Beyond workplace organising, CUT has a broad transformative programme, with a significant focus on just transition.

Commercial and Industrial Workers Unions (CIWU) is a union established in 1978 to represent private sector workers, and part of the United Federation of Labour, a federation of nine trade unions representing diverse sectors. Along with other sectors, CIWU organises among precarious garment workers, fighting for fairer wages, improvements in working conditions and for the right to collective bargaining in a sector hostile to trade unions. CIWU is part of coalitions and broader efforts for just economic transformation in Sri Lanka.

CooperAcción is a non-profit organisation that promotes the social and sustainable management of territories, and defends individual, collective and nature rights, based on the proposals of communities affected by extractive activities in Peru. CooperAcción works in the Andean and Amazonian territories, and with fishermen’s and artisans’ organisations in the Lima coastal areas, building capacity for campaigning and media representation. It also conducts its own policy work on mining conflicts, tax justice and other issues, and advocacy for stronger environmental and community governance.

Free Trade Zones have eroded rights for workers around the globe. In Sri Lanka, Free Trade Zones and General Services Employees Union (FTZ&GSEU) is one of the largest trade unions representing workers in global supply chains (including garment workers) and for over 30 years has been at the forefront of battling for workers’ rights. It has won increases in wages, signed collective bargaining agreements and in many other ways fought for the rights of workers at the bottom of the garment supply chain.

“This is a lesson for the employer to learn, that in the global economy it is not only profit and investments that travel across geographical boundaries, but also worker solidarity and organisational unity.” – Anton Marcus, Joint General Secretary

Formed in 2009, Housing Assembly is a housing social movement organising poor people in the Western Cape, South Africa. It has a membership of over 6,500 people representing six districts in and around Cape Town.

Housing Assembly campaigns for the right of poor people to decent housing, and against the privatisation of basic services. It brings together the campaigns of shack dwellers, backyard dwellers and those living in dilapidated social housing or facing evictions. It campaigns for the provision of water, electricity and sanitation, and an end to evictions and forced removals. Housing Assembly uses grassroots organising methods used by anti-apartheid movements in the 1980s (door-to-door visits and community speakouts) to raise awareness of housing rights and the right to basic services.

The Jatiyo Kisani Shramik Samity (JKSS) – or National Farmers and Workers Association – is a Bangladesh-based movement representing the rights of women and farmworkers in the country, and campaigning for food sovereignty and agroecological production. It is a strategic partner of the Bangladesh Agricultural Farm Labour Federation, and they conduct many projects together. 

JKSS works mainly with women farmers and farmworkers to hold workshops, education programmes, trainings and demonstrations. JKSS highlights the problems with corporate-patented genetically-modified seeds, advocates for a reduction in pesticide use in agriculture, and for alternatives to the dominant industrial agricultural model, such as the use of local seed varieties.

The Kenyan Peasants League (KPL) is a social movement of Kenyan Peasant farmers, fisherfolk, pastoralists and consumers, whose main aim is to promote smallholder farmer agroecology and resist neoliberal policies that kill local agriculture. KPL promotes indigenous seeds, livestock and plant varieties and the creation of an alternative economy that is driven by provision for livelihoods. KPL was founded in 2016 and has been part of La Via Campesina network since 2018.

The Labour Education Foundation (LEF) was established in 1993 as a key movement organisation by renowned trade union leaders, human rights groups and gender rights activists. It organises, resources and advocates for workers' rights, provides informed input to trade unions, and supports movements and civil society organisations for the promotion of workers' rights. It aims to reach workers in the informal and less unionised sectors through direct organising and services, with a feminist approach focusing on women’s collective organisation, even in difficult environments.

The Latin American Observatory for Environmental Conflicts (Observatorio Latinoamericano de conflictos Ambientales – OLCA) supports communities affected by environmental conflict, building their capacities and advising on their rights.

OLCA monitors environmental conflicts, develops management tools, conducts conflict management training and researches environmental protections in relation with the rights of citizens.

Through this work, OLCA is helping to build towards alternative models of development that are at the service of life, ecosystems, and the communities and towns that inhabit them.

The Law and Society Trust (LST) is a non-profit organisation engaged in human rights documentation, legal research and advocacy. LST seeks to promote and protect human rights, enhance public accountability and hold the state and powerful economic interests to account. LST connects with a range of movements from farmers movements, feminist collectives and trade unions, as well as individual activists, and is playing a pivotal role in the progressive movement space in Sri Lanka.

Malawian Union for the Informal Sector (MUFIS) was founded in 2000 and today has a membership of 7,000 informal traders covering the Northern, Central and Southern regions of Malawi. MUFIS organises street vendors, hawkers, marketers, artisans, small veranda (khondes) businesses, informal cross-border traders and smallholder tea farmers. The majority of its members are women. MUFIS is currently assisting its members to fight for their right to trade freely in Malawi, which includes the right not to be evicted, the right not to be harassed by police and the right to better working conditions including designated trading space with access to basic services.

The Movement for Land and Agricultural Reform (MONLAR) emerged from the peasants’ movement opposing neoliberal reforms in the 1970s and 1980s, and encompasses a network of farmers' grassroots organisations. MONLAR works towards building a people's movement for food sovereignty through capacity building and mobilising small farmers and marginalised communities. It also protects natural resources and human rights, and lobbies for change and the implementation of alternative policies that are sustainable and just.

The Observatory for Mining Conflicts in Latin America (Observatorio de conflictos mineros en Latinoamerica – OCMAL) is a platform of over 40 organisations, with the aim of defending communities affected by mining. OCMAL develops processes to safeguard and protect the rights and livelihoods of communities in Latin America experiencing human rights and environmental abuses due to large-scale mining exploration and exploitation, supporting them to secure justice for those abuses.

OCMAL is a space for research and exploration of new opportunities to achieve greater effectiveness in the defence and protection of the environment. It runs collective campaigns and actions, facilitates the exchange of information and develops community-led actions, incorporating and integrating global action with grassroots initiatives, in order to leverage political influence in international forums on decisions that affect the well-being of communities in Latin America affected by mining extractivism.

Pluriversidad Indígena en Puelmapu is an autonomous Indigenous education initiative rooted in Indigenous Mapuche-Tehuelche territory in Puelmapu, Argentine Patagonia. Emerging in 2019 and grounded in community knowledge, territorial defence and Indigenous cosmovision, the Pluriversidad promotes the exchange and revitalisation of ancestral and contemporary Indigenous knowledges through workshops, gatherings and collective learning processes.

The Pluriversidad integrates education with ecological restoration of the land from extractive pine tree plantations. The Pluriversidad functions as a living, community-based space that strengthens Indigenous autonomy, cultural continuity and territorial care in the face of extractivism, climate crisis and ongoing colonial pressures.

Post-Extractive Futures (PEF) is an experimental internationalist collective bringing together struggles for eco-social transformations across borders. PEF’s focus is on movements in Global South regions where mining, the processing of metals and the broader extractive industry is impacting communities' health, safety, wellbeing and livelihoods. The collective aims to challenge new forms of green colonialism and extractivism. It was co-created by Junte Gente (Puerto Rico), Ecosocial Pact of the South (Latin America), Global Tapestry of Alternatives (Global), Tipping Point (UK) and War on Want (UK).

The Red Plurinacional de Pueblos Fumigados (Plurinational Network of Pesticide-Affected Peoples), brings together communities and rural producers affected by corporate spraying of highly hazardous pesticides in Argentina and the Southern Cone (Uruguay, Brazil and Paraguay). It was created during the 7th International Congress on Socio-Environmental Health in 2023.

The Southern Cone region has historically served as a testing ground for new genetically modified crops, agrochemicals and corporate agribusiness models. The network seeks to connect affected communities with scientists and campaigners, providing direct support in litigation and campaigns, building a national and wider regional movement and developing collective strategies of resistance against the expansion of agrochemicals and corporate agriculture.

Founded in 2018 during a regional meeting of North African Organisations, the Siyada Network is a common voice for the fight of peasants, fisherfolk, and agricultural workers, and is a unifying structure of their struggles in the North Africa region, involved in local, continental and international mobilisations. Its first assembly took place in December 2018 in Agadir, Morocco, with delegations from Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. It brought together representatives of trade unions, cooperatives and associations that work on food sovereignty, defending agricultural workers, smallholder farmers and fisherfolk, conserving indigenous seeds, and protecting water and land.

The Syndicat Démocratique de l’Agriculture (SDA) – or the Democratic Union of Agriculture –  is a grassroots union of agricultural workers, part of the Federation of Democratic Unions in Morocco. The SDA is an important organiser and defender of farmworkers in Chtouka Ait Baha, located in the Souss-Massa region (South Morocco). SDA’s regional branch in Souss-Massa organises and mobilises farmworkers (mostly women) employed in the export-oriented agricultural sector, mainly large megafarms dedicated to tomato and berry cultivation.

Trade Unions for Energy Democracy (TUED) is a global, multi-sector initiative representing 66 unions and federations in 20 countries. TUED works to advance democratic control and social ownership of energy, in ways that promote solutions to the climate crisis, address energy poverty, resist the degradation of both land and people, and respond to the attacks on workers’ rights and protections. TUED is a global coalition with a strong emphasis on Global South unions.

Ubunye Bama Hostela (UBH) organises hostel dwellers in 11 hostels in which over 120,000 people live. Since 2006, UBH has been organising for the transformation of the hostels that were built during apartheid to house rural male migrant workers for the city of Durban. UBH has been organising hostel dwellers, outside of party political affiliations, and campaigning for an end to slum conditions and for the creation of decent, family-friendly, permanent public housing with basic services. It works for non-violent and safe hostels, an end to evictions and forced removals, an end to corrupt practices of room allocations and an end to access to social housing based on political affiliation.

Formed by women workers in Sri Lanka’s Free Trade Zones in 1982, Women’s Centre works for the dignity, equality and rights of women.

Women’s Centre has nearly 2,000 members and runs four open access centres for women workers, mainly garment factory workers. The members raise awareness and train women on gender and workers’ rights, offer counselling, advice and legal support, and campaign to end violence against women, improve workers’ housing and improve the rights of migrant workers.