The FAO Sub-regional Office for the Oriental Near East (SNO), in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture of Jordan, has organized a workshop on “Land Tenure, Planning and Management: their impacts in sustainable agriculture and food security in the Oriental Near East Sub-region”, in Amman, Jordan, during the period 18 to 20 December 2011.

The Workshop was attended by country delegates, national consultants from the Oriental Near East Sub-region, as well as regional and international organizations and NGOs active in the area of land resources in the Sub-region.

FAO SNO has produced concise country reports on the “Status of Land tenure, Land Management and Land Use Planning in SNO Countries”. Country reports were presented by National consultants from the member countries. This workshop was a good opportunity for participating countries to discuss these studies and to update information and data, and subsequently, identify issues and priorities for technical and policy support and practical on needed transformations at policy, institutional and technical spheres to promote interdisciplinary and multi-stakeholders processes on land tenure and management fields.

Several participants from relevant institutions in Jordan and representatives from ESCWA, LAS, WOCAT and ICARDA made different presentations related to different land resources issues and NRL, NRC and SNO/RNE were represented in the workshop and made a series of presentations to inform the participants on relevant global and regional processes and tools being applied by FAO with member countries .

Country Delegates acknowledged the importance of this first step that provided the broad picture of the land tenure, planning and management of member countries. They recognized the fact that the Sub-region is one of the world regions where land tenure, planning and management is a key for sustainable agriculture and food security. Country Delegates stressed that these fields should be treated with an integrated approach and urged FAO to continue its effort together with relevant partners to develop a sub-regional project on land tenure, planning and management.

The workshop was a total success in general and extremely interesting in particular as it brought together delegates and information on the three inter-related disciplines, land tenure, planning and land management that are often addressed separately as they are mandated to different institutions.

Working group discussions were held that led to a draft Amman recommendations, for which the discussion was left open after the workshop during one month for all amendments and comments until the final adopted Amman recommendations. In addition to these recommendations, a proposal was also suggested on how LADA-WOCAT tools could be applied in the sub-region, possibly as a regional component of the GEF projects. A Sub-regional Initiative on Conservation Approaches and Technologies for Sustainable Land Management (SNOCAT) is also suggested to be supported.