On September 6-7, Nick Armstrong, a World Renew staff member in Indonesia, was an invited speaker at the first International Conference on Sustainable Development Practice (ICSDP) at Columbia University in New York.

The forum was put on by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and The Global Association of Master’s in Development Practice Programs (MDP). Both are initiatives of Columbia University’s The Earth institute and are committed to bringing together the people and tools needed to address some of the world’s most difficult problems.

On September 6-7, Nick Armstrong, a World Renew staff member in Indonesia, was an invited speaker at the first International Conference on Sustainable Development Practice (ICSDP) at Columbia University in New York.

The forum was put on by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and The Global Association of Master's in Development Practice Programs (MDP).  Both are initiatives of Columbia University’s The Earth institute and are committed to bringing together the people and tools needed to address some of the world's most difficult problems.

At ICSDP, practitioners, researchers, students and leaders came together to share and discuss innovative ideas and practices on sustainable development. In the plenary sessions, renowned economist Jeffery Sachs and Dr. Amina Mohammed (The UN’s Special Advisor on Post 2015 Development Planning) presented a broad stroke picture of the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of sustainable development.

“By the sharing of the story of Moro-Moro’s struggle for human indignity through nonviolent acts of resistance, the core Christian values of justice and peace were made evident…”

“These speakers stressed both the critical nature of the path of unsustainable development that we are currently on as a global civilization and the need for a path towards sustainable development that addresses all three dimensions in a balanced and holistic way,” said Armstrong.

Conference speakers were from a variety of disciplines and shared their knowledge and expertise on a wide variety of topics all related to fostering sustainable development especially in the world’s poorest countries.

Nick Armstrong was among the speakers invited to share on the theme of “Challenges of Social Inclusion: Gender, Inequalities, and Human Rights. He specifically highlighted the long  history of “land grabbing” conflict facing the people of Moro-Moro, Indonesia and World Renew’s unique response to it. His presentation was interactive and allowed him to exchange ideas one-on-one or in small groups with conference attendees.

“The conference provided an excellent opportunity to present and discuss the enormity of global land grabbing practices by focusing on a specific case of land grabbing in Indonesia that was concrete and highly personal,” Armstrong said.

Moro-Moro lies in the Indonesian region of Mesuji and is home to some of Indonesia’s indigenous people. It is also made up of prime land that could be used by large corporations for palm oil production. Since the people of Moro-Moro lack titles to the land that they have lived and worked on for generations, they have been ensnared in a long conflict over the land and their right to live there.

“The people of Moro-Moro are not only considered landless, but also ‘stateless’ as their lack of land title has used to deny them citizenship in Indonesia,” explained Armstrong. “The government has systematically discriminated against these people by giving them no identity cards. This denies them the legal grounds for staying on the land they are farming, and denies them access to social services such as education and health. By granting the use of that land to the big palm oil companies, the government continues to avoid their obligation to provide basic social services to the people of Moro-Moro. They also add to their own revenues through fees, taxes and bribes paid by the big companies.”

As a result of this situation, many people have lost their land, homes, and businesses as palm oil companies have come in over the past 15 years. The people have also lived in constant fear of being forced from their homes. Two years ago, for example, 230 homes were bulldozed in the neighboring village of Pekat. Five people were killed and more than a thousand people were displaced.

World Renew is working in the Moro-Moro region alongside its local partner, the South Sumatran Christian Church. To help people overcome poverty, they also had to address the land rights injustices that were experienced there.

The church selected two leaders to be “peacebuilding agents” for the community. These agents attended a three-week training course at the Mindanao Peace Institute for two consecutive years. They then became instrumental in helping the community of Moro-Moro develop a local farmer’s union to help them organize and take a path of non-violent resistance, protect their rights to the land, and promote their struggle to become Indonesian citizens.

…the situation affecting Moro-Moro has become a national issue. It is also starting to gain international scrutiny.

With the support of this farmer’s union, the Moro-Moro community, religious leaders, academics and the mass media, the situation affecting Moro-Moro has become a national issue. It is also starting to gain international scrutiny.

The hope is that these advocacy efforts will put enough pressure on the Indonesian government that they will provide citizenship to the people of Moro-Moro and allow them to stay on their land.

In the meantime, the community members have also taken some concrete steps to protect themselves. Through the farmer’s union, the Moro-Moro people have come together to raise funds and build their own school, children’s medical clinic, water and sanitation station, and homes. These community improvements are a subtle “act of resistance” against the government because they provide a concrete expression of the people’s human dignity in the face of laws and situations that try to dehumanize them and deny them rights.

Armstrong’s ICSDP presentation shared about this program and tried to help the various conference attendees apply best practices to issues of land rights in other countries around the world.

The people of Moro-Moro were very aware of Armstrong’s presence at the conference and were cheering him on through Oki Wahid, the local peacebuilder who has worked with the Moro-Moro people since 2006.

For Armstrong, It was a thrill to know that the Moro-Moro people’s fight for their basic human right to become citizens of Indonesia played a role, however small, in this important discussion on social inclusion, and justice in the larger agenda of sustainable development.

“By the sharing of the story of Moro-Moro’s struggle for human dignity through nonviolent acts of resistance, the core Christian values of justice and peace were made evident,” said Armstrong. “And their struggle begged further questions about the role of values and ethics within the overall sustainable development agenda—essential questions that received very little attention at the ICSDP.”