The article “From Blood Diamonds to Fishponds: Land-Rights Project for Central African Republic Miners Has Ripple Effect” describes the successes of a project led by USAID’s Land Tenure Unit.
Remarks by Gregory Myers, during negotiations for the Voluntary Guidelines for Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries, and Forests on March 8, 2012
Ministers, Excellencies, honorable representatives of member countries, civil society participants and guests: This morning we begin our session with recognition of International Women’s Day.
Each year the United Nations declares an International Women’s Day theme. This year, the theme is “Empower Rural Women – End Hunger and Poverty.”
Perhaps this is a sign of growing recognition of what we already know—that the work we are engaged in this week is extremely relevant to the lives of people around the world. The conclusion of these negotiations of the Voluntary Guidelines will produce a document that provides a framework for countries to develop laws and policies to be used in the context of national food security.
The statistics supporting this are numerous:
– The FAO estimates that women produce over 50% of all food grown worldwide. In developing countries, women produce 60%–80% of the food grown, yet own less than 2% of the land.
– The recent State of Food and Agriculture report found that giving women the same access to agricultural resources as men could increase production on women’s farms in developing countries by 20 to 30 percent – enough to feed up to 150 million more of the world’s hungry.
– FAO Deputy Director General Tutwiler has stated, “Female farmers produce less than male farmers because they do not have access to seeds, tools, fertilizer and credit, not because women are worse farmers.”
Many people in the world lack secure tenure rights and access to adequate resources; however, we know that women face more and greater obstacles in accessing and obtaining rights to resources than men do. In many instances, women’s rights come though marriage and are not secure. A divorced or widowed woman is likely to lose her tenure rights, yet still carry the responsibility to provide for her family. Without secure tenure rights, she and her children are less likely to have food security, and more likely to live in poverty. Conversely, the World Bank has stated that reducing gender inequality leads to reductions in infant and child mortality, improvements in nutrition, and increased economic productivity.
In support of combating the tenure rights issues faced by women, we have appropriately named human dignity, non-discrimination, equity and justice, and gender equality as essential principles of implementation in Section 3B of these Voluntary Guidelines. These guidelines, once adopted, will clarify issues of tenure rights and impact the lives of women around the world. We hope they will accelerate the efforts that many cooperation assistance organizations are already making to address gender inequality with regards to tenure, as demonstrated by the slideshow that has been playing on the screen.
In closing, I’d like us all to take a moment to acknowledge the many contributions women make every day in tackling these issues and in advancing development globally. I can think of no better way to honor women and their work than by continuing these negotiations and coming to consensus this week on a document to be sent to the CFS for adoption.
Thank you.
Update on Land Administration and Policies in Asia/Pacific
Earlier this month, the Parliament in Timor Leste passed three laws related to property rights. The new measures, which now await signature by the President, are expected to provide a foundation for resolving disputes and registering land; prescribe procedures under which the Government can expropriate land; and create a fund to compensate property owners who lose their property rights. These new laws will have a large impact on economic growth, which stalled when the Indonesian occupation ended and civil war ripped the country apart.
The new legislation is a significant accomplishment that USAID and other bi-lateral donors have supported over the long term. Since 2007, USAID has invested $10 million in supporting the Strengthening Property Rights in Timor Leste (SPRTL) project. This project addressed serious concerns related to land-based conflict raised in a 2006 Conflict Vulnerability Assessment. The project’s main objectives included:
Given the substantial delay in passing a new Land Law, the project adopted a flexible approach, and also created an alternate process for registering and mediating property claims. This process – known as “Ita Nia Rai” or “Our Land” – operated independently and successfully for several years but now has been adopted by Timor Leste’s Ministry of Finance. As of October 2011, 53,814 land claims had been recorded for 50,101 parcels of land, in a claims process that is free of charge to participants and decentralized. Of the 53,814 claims, only 9.2 percent are disputed.
Additionally, Ita Nia Rai reached over 12,000 Timorese with public awareness activities including community forums, focus group discussions, workshops/seminars, and annual forums to explain the land claims process. The project also developed 16 descriptive videos; nine are available on YouTube. These efforts have helped inform the Timorese public of opportunities that exist under Ita Nia Rai to bring claims to property and thereby strengthen their property rights.
A recent USAID publication titled, The Global State of Agriculture, cites access to land as one reason why women farmers are less productive than men. Structures within the statutory and customary land tenure systems compounded by societal norms in many locations limit a woman’s ability to secure land. Click the links below to see the infographic and a report outlining land tenure and property rights challenges for women.
To read the full report linking Land Tenure, Property Rights and Gender Challenges, click here.
This video details the problems faced by diamond miners working with alluvial diamonds in the Central African Republic, and the challenges of affirming property rights at the grass roots level. The video briefly summarizes the 8-step process PRADD developed to translate customary rights into statutory rights. The process combines community development techniques to identify, organize, and motivate miners with GPS devices to precisely locate the mining claims.
The final round of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN’s Committee on Food Security-led Intergovernmental Negotiations on the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security will take place March 5-9, 2012 in Rome.
Read CFS Chairman Yaya Asisa Olaitan Olaniran’s Invitation Letter to the final round of negotiations on the Voluntary Guidelines.
The Working Group’s Chair, Dr. Gregory Myers, explains the procedural rules for negotions and outlines work to be conducted beforehand by the Language Harmonization Group in the Chair’s Letter.
Yesterday’s IMPACTblog included an entry by the Land Tenure Unit Team Leader, Dr. Gregory Myers. Myers, in his role as chair for a UN committee developing guidelines for land tenure, outlines the negotiation process, current progress and potential outcomes of the committee’s work.
Major development in recognition of customary property rights in Kenya
Through its Kenya SECURE Project, USAID, in cooperation with the Kenya Ministry of Lands, recently developed the Community Land Rights Recognition (CLRR) Model, a process for providing legal registration of land held by communities under customary law. This is the first recognition of land owned as a result of customary usage in Kenya and will promote investment, better natural resource management and, in some parts of the country, reduce land grabbing.
Earlier this month, at the closing ceremonies of a workshop held to finalize the CLRR model and plan its implementation, the Assistant Minister for Lands, the Honorable Sylvester Wakoli Bifwoli, praised the work of the SECURE Project and officially endorsed the model as a Government of Kenya instrument for formalizing community land rights. Based on the endorsement, the project will mobilize a team of Ministry staff and other stakeholders in the coming weeks to initiate a pilot of the tool in four indigenous Boni and Bajuni communities in Lamu County.
Lamu County was selected as an ideal site for the project given the nexus of the natural resource management and land use issues within the complex economic and institutional context of the region. The model process will secure the rights of the local Boni and Bajuni communities who have occupied customarily-held land for over one thousand years and have been considered “squatters” without legal standing to advance their social and economic aspirations. The entire region has been a prime target for irregular, illegal, and extra-legal acquisition from speculators targeting the proposed Lamu Port South Sudan and Ethiopia Transport Corridor project area.
Lessons from the pilot projects will help refine the model for replication throughout the country in appropriate communities, and will help inform the development of new land legislation in accordance with the Constitution and the National Land Policy.
Developed based on provisions in Kenya’s 2010 Constitution, as well as the 2009 National Land Policy, the CLRR’s main goal is to provide a mechanism for the registration of community rights and interests to land in a systematic, transparent and cost-effective manner. As a system of land tenure in Kenya, “Community Land” is a new category introduced in the Constitution. This category strengthens the various provisions in the National Land Policy regarding the recognition of all modes of tenure, including customary and community land ownership. Almost all previous statutes on land were geared towards individualization of land with few provisions for recognizing communal rights and interests to land. Until these changes took effect, community land rights in Kenya have been held under the Group Ranch Representative Act, Trust Lands Act and Government Lands Act. These forms of land tenure are no longer recognized by the Land Policy, adopted by Parliament in 2009, and are replaced by “Community” and “Public” tenure regimes.
USAID’s property rights project in Timor Leste plays a key role in helping settle land disputes on the small island in Southeast Asia. A recent article written by IRIN, the humanitarian news and analysis service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, describes the history of conflict surrounding land by highlighting one woman’s story and outlining current progress to establishing land rights.
To read the full article, click here.
U.S. Mission to the UN Agencies in Rome
October 19, 2011
ROME – The United States government commends the United Nations Committee on Food Security (CFS) for the extraordinary work that it has done on the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Lands, Fisheries and Forests, achieving consensus on approximately seventy percent of the document during the July and October negotiations.
The U.S. government has dedicated substantial resources to the negotiation process and remains committed to completing Guidelines that will provide safeguards that protect the property rights of the vulnerable and marginalized, including indigenous people and women. The United States has been pleased to Chair these CFS-led Intergovernmental negotiations.
These Guidelines will establish an international framework to improve land governance, which will strengthen property rights, support transparent procedures for land allocation, and promote accessibility and accountability of land administration agencies.
Recent reports like the World Bank’s Rising Global Interest in Farmland, and Oxfam’s Land and Power, and stories in the press shed light on the phenomenon of large-scale land acquisitions, which are sometimes referred to as ‘land grabbing’, particularly in Africa. We recognize the concerns with some of the land investments that have taken place in recent years.
“We believe that weak land governance is at the heart of the ‘land grabbing’ phenomenon and that improving land governance is central to addressing it,” said Ertharin Cousin, the United States Representative to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organizations in Rome.
The U.S. government recognizes the need to ensure that safeguards are in place as investment in agriculture is necessarily expanded in order to meet the Millennium Development Goals and increase food security. These Guidelines will help governments attract responsible investment and put in place strong governance systems to prevent ‘land grabbing’. The Guidelines create a framework that will encourage small-holders to invest in their own farms and move towards food security.
Around the world, the U.S. government is actively supporting improvements in land governance that strengthen the property rights of local people and communities, and improve the capacity of land administration agencies to provide necessary services.
The U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) has committed over $250m in funding for land governance projects in 11 partner countries, and USAID in the past three years has funded $200m in land tenure programming in 30 countries around the world. Both anticipate making increased investments in this area over the coming years.
These programs are already working on the ground to put in place the principles of responsible land governance that are at the heart of the Voluntary Guidelines.