Fian

About Fian

FIAN Belgium is a human-rights organization dedicated to the realization of the right to adequate food and nutrition for everyone. As the Belgian section of FIAN International, it works within a global network active in more than 50 countries and holds consultative status with the United Nations.

The organization focuses on transforming food systems by placing social and environmental justice at the center of debate. It supports social movements and affected communities, including peasants, rural workers, women, Indigenous peoples, fishers, and consumers who face hunger, malnutrition, food insecurity, or violations of their rights.

In Belgium, FIAN Belgium combines advocacy, public mobilization, and rights-based campaigning to push for policies that protect access to healthy, adequate food and strengthen food democracy.

Core Values

• Human rights: FIAN Belgium frames food access as a legally protected right, not a matter of charity. Its work emphasizes state obligations to respect, protect, and fulfill that right.
• Social and environmental justice: The organization places justice at the center of food-system transformation, linking food rights with climate, ecological protection, and fair treatment of rural communities.
• Food sovereignty: It supports democratic control over food, agriculture, and land, and opposes corporate concentration and the loss of community control over food systems.
• Solidarity and collective action: FIAN Belgium works with citizens, grassroots movements, and partner organizations, valuing coalition-building and mutual support across local and global struggles.

Unique Aspects

• Part of a global rights network: FIAN Belgium is one of the national sections of FIAN International, which works in more than 50 countries and has UN consultative status.
• Rights-based approach to food systems: Its distinctive angle is to address food, nutrition, and agriculture explicitly through human-rights law, rather than through charity or purely technical policy debates.
• Strong coalition culture: The organization emphasizes collaboration with other associations, platforms, and coalitions, seeing complementary partnerships as central to its method.
• Longstanding Belgian presence: FIAN Belgium was founded in 1986 by a small group of volunteer activists, making it one of the earliest national sections in the network.