Environmental activists at a rally
Nigeria’s Mariann Bassey Olsson of Friends of the Earth Nigeria alongside its international affiliate , Friends of the Earth International, has joined hundreds of other social movements and organisations from all over the world, at the 3rd Nyéléni Global Forum in support for a strong and growing movement for food sovereignty, global justice and system change.
[Kandy, Sri Lanka – September 6th, 2025] — In the face of deepening hunger, and accelerating ecological breakdown, land grabbing and democratic backsliding, more than 500 grassroots delegates from around the world including Nigeria’s Mariann Bassey Olsson of Friends of the Earth Nigeria are gathering for the 3rd Nyéléni Global Forum holding in Kandy, Sri Lanka, from September 6th to 13th, 2025. The forum is a space to confront systemic injustice and build collective pathways towards a system rooted in peoples’ rights, justice and solidarity.
Friends of the Earth International is part of a strong and growing movement known as the Nyéléni process. Together, we are co-organising a critical convergence, amplifying our shared vision for system change and building a world beyond capitalism, colonialism, patriarchy, racism, and fascism.
Over the coming days, the forum will define collective strategies around six pillars: Construct people’s democracy, rights, and peace; Build people’s economies; Food sovereignty and agroecology; Secure land, water, territories and agrarian reform; Achieve health for all; Achieve climate justice and energy sovereignty.
From food sovereignty to system change: What do we demand?
In the face of the multiple interconnected crises— hunger, climate collapse, inequality and genocide— it becomes clear that these issues cannot be addressed in isolation: they require transforming the systems that are the root causes.
According to Hemantha Withanage, Friends of the Earth International Chair, “The crises we face are not isolated. They are rooted in the same broken system; the capitalist, imperialist, patriarchal, racist, and colonial structure that reinforces oppression and threatens our planet and peoples’ rights. At the 3rd Nyéléni Global Forum, grassroots movements from all over the world are building a collective path toward system change, grounded in social, economic, environmental and gender justice, internationalist solidarity and peoples’ rights and sovereignty”
In the 3rd Nyéléni Global Forum, we are building a powerful counterforce against fascist regimes that threaten democracy and erase workers’ and peoples’ rights.
Also Friends of the Earth International Executive Committee member, Wanda Olivares, said “Together with the grassroots movements present in Nyéléni, we promote peoples’ democracy— based on equality, internationalist solidarity, peoples’ rights, social, economic, gender and environmental justice, and peace. We are fighting to protect and expand the rights of peoples and their territories”
The 3rd Nyéléni Global Forum is rooted in the food sovereignty political movement. Beyond food production, it aims at creating policy spaces led by peasants, Indigenous Peoples, family farmers and artisanal food producers who have always been the first caregivers of nature and forests.
Nigeria’s Mariann Bassey, Food Sovereignty Program coordinator at Friends of the Earth Africa, also said “Food sovereignty connects struggles and territories. It’s about more than food. It’s about reclaiming power and sovereignty, and claiming that food is a human right, not a commodity. Food sovereignty relies on agroecology, the fairer system to produce food, rooted in solidarity, cooperation, and justice, for a fair and sustainable food system and society”
As part of our vision for system change, we demand a just transition approach to energy policy. This is essential to ensure that the transition to renewables benefits everyone.
“We are committed to a feminist, just energy transition that empowers communities, defends energy sovereignty, and puts people’s rights and life at the centre. Together, we’re building a future where renewable energy serves everyone—especially marginalised communities—through solidarity and ecological justice; adds the Climate Justice and Energy Program Coordinator at Friends of the Earth International, Kirtana Chandrasekaran,
In the face of global crises, the connections between our struggles are more necessary and urgent than ever. The Nyéléni process builds resistance and hope: grassroots social movements are imagining and organising for a world rooted in peoples’ rights, justice, equity, solidarity, care, and respect for life. We are building people’s power together, from the bottom up, to change the system
