The Land Tenure Service of FAO's Rural Development Division is formally adopting the “social pact on land reform” as a way of dealing with new challenges relating to land. There are two elements to this process: first, a land assessment from the comprehensive perspective of all social actors and, second, the negotiating table, at which civil society, government institutions, local communities and the private sector are all effectively represented. Such an approach confers a new role on development experts who are no longer solely technical consultants, but must now also function as facilitators of social dialogue.
