FAO and Partners advancing Inclusive Land reforms at the 2023 African Land Policy Conference

: FAO/Ingeborg Gaarde. High-level opening panel of the pre-event on Inclusive land reforms. Government representatives, African Union Headquarters, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

On 20 November 2023, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Land Coalition (ILC), Welthungerhilfe (WHH), and the African Land Policy Centre (ALPC) organized the contribution of multi-stakeholder platforms to inclusive land reforms and implementation in Africa as a pre-event to the 5th Land Policy Conference in Africa.

The pre-event was organized at the African Union Headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and gathered around 50 government representatives, NGOs, producers’ organizations, and development partners.

The event was opened by Dr. Joan Cuka Kagwanja, the Chief of the African Land Policy Centre, and followed by a High-level Opening Panel on Inclusive Land Reforms Government Representatives comprising the Minister of Lands, Housing & Urban Development of Uganda, the Secretary General of the Ministry of Land of Chad and Technical Advisor to the Minister of Land in Sierra Leone.

The event was centered around sharing of experiences with multi-stakeholder platforms and land reform processes (Chad, Niger, Sierra Leone, Libera, Uganda) inspired by the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure (VGGT) and the Framework and Guidelines on Land Policy in Africa.

: FAO/ALPC. Opening of the 2023 African Land Policy Conference, African Union Headquarters, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The event also had space for specific panel sessions on Connecting National Land Reforms to Regional Processes. This was composed of representatives of the Africa Traditional Authority Forum (ATAF), the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the Regional Land Observatory/West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA), and the CSO Platform supported by the Africa Land Policy Center (ALPC). The panel members agreed on the need for partners to enable dialogue on land monitoring framework of land reform reforms.

The pre-event brought together a panel of development partners (The World Bank, GIZ, and The Netherlands Enterprise Agency) moderated by FAO. The debate centered on how to better upscale Inclusive Land Reforms. The development partners agreed on the need for a better-coordinated upscaling of successful land reform experience and underlined the importance of integrating land with other agendas, including climate change, to bring land back to the heart of the development debate.

Finally, to close the 5-day conference, FAO led the preparation of a Call for action for development partners to orient future actions. This call underlined, among others, the need for better coordination and collaboration at all levels, from global to local, to maximize the impact of support to land tenure reforms and other land-related interventions. It was presented by FAO on behalf of the group of development partners at the Closing Plenary session to the approximate 400 conference participants.

The African Land Policy Conference was supported by the Global Land Agenda, aiming to keep land as a priority on the UN Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development.

For more information visit: ILC and Welthungerhilfe

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FAO and Partners advancing Inclusive Land reforms at the 2023 African Land Policy Conference