Pedagogy, Participation, and the Nyéléni Global Process

Intro and Summary:

The Nyeleni process which most recently culminated in its third global forum held in September in Sri Lanka signifies today a unique pedagogical and participatory space for common political voice and demands shaping of social movements working towards systemic change. The first Nyéléni forum born out of the struggles of the global food movement and carrying a focus on Food Sovereignty took place in 2007 in Selingué, Mali, whilst the second Nyéléni forum carrying a focus on Agroecology took place in 2015, also in the same village.

The third forum placed a strong emphasis on Peoples’ Sovereignty in its broadest sense. Held from 6–13 September 2025, it gathered around 700 representatives from national and regional organisations, spanning six regional constituencies and 13 global movements—including RIPESS Intercontinental. Delegates represented small-scale farmers, fisherfolk, agri- and food workers, pastoralists, Indigenous Peoples, food artisans, the urban food insecure, human rights defenders, minority and migrant rights groups, academics, climate justice advocates, the social and solidarity economy, the health sector, artists, and NGOs. Notably, for the first time, more than 60% of participants were women and gender-diverse people, while one-third were youth.

The forum marked the ending of a two years Nyéléni process phase dedicated to gathering and drafting inputs into a Common Political Action Agenda (CPAA), which will be launched during the upcoming COP30 in November in Bélém, Brasil. The CPAA is to be seen as a living document to collaborate and contains besides analysis and positioning six interrelated axes of convergence pointing to pathways creating the social, economic, political and cultural conditions for radical change. It also sets out concrete points regarding the strengthening of movements to implement that agenda and political action points. A shorter Final Declaration of the Forum will soon be published, highlighting key global campaigns that signal the way forward.

The writing explores Nyéléni’s participatory and pedagogical features which are elaborated upon by taking the process of the coming to the Nyéléni CPAA at hand. This is done starting from the later sections of the CPAA, whilst the first section of the CPAA comes at the end of this writing, as a reference to the question: what is Nyéléni? How can we pinpoint the significance of the Nyéléni Global Forum today? What is its central message? Why have movements wanted to join Nyéléni? This question of how to frame the Nyéléni process is an important one, not only for understanding its evolution but also for recognizing what it brings to the forefront.

When listening to the participating voices in the Nyéléni process one can discern different answers to this question. This writing through a revisiting of the history of the Nyéléni process brings to the forefront that throughout its existence Nyéléni has been a space for common political action building for a movement recognizing the centrality of land and food in their struggles, and that one answer to the question as to why movements join is that they acknowledge the unique potential of working towards food sovereignty for systemic change in our communities and through this our societies, whilst contributing their own values, principles, and objectives to the collective struggle for food sovereignty.