Governance of Tenure

FAO supports a Civil Society Forum as part of the Participatory Process of Preparing a National Land Policy in Chad

Plenary session during the civil society forum in Chad on May 16, 2023. Photo: Leïllah ABBO IDRISS OUTMAN MI/Oxfam Chad

On 16 and 17 May 2023, FAO and OXFAM-Chad organized a 2-day forum for 150 civil society participants to prepare their recommendations for the national land policy under preparation in Chad. The forum brought together civil society actors from the 23 provinces of the country, including peasants and pastoralist organizations, women and youth representatives as well as paralegal associations.

The workshop was part of the participatory process of preparing the land policy in Chad, and was the culmination of a series of consultation workshops undertaken in the three different agro-ecological zones of Chad.

Opening of the civil society forum by the Minister in charge of Land Affaires. Photo. Leïllah ABBO IDRISS OUTMAN MI/Oxfam Chad.

The Minister in charge of land affairs opened the forum by giving emphasis to the fact that more than 80 percent of the conflicts that end at the court level in Chad relate to land and that the “Land policy is more than urgent for the country to find solutions to these pressing challenges”.

The forum allowed the participants to discuss a stock-taking report on the land tenure situation in the country prepared by a team of experts after a broad consultation and data collection process aiming at identifying the main themes for the land policy in Chad.

A group work session on May 17, 2023, N’Djamena, Chad. Photo: Ingeborg Gaarde/FAO

The group work during the forum was organized around the following themes: 1) legislative and regulatory framework of land administration; 2) urban land; 3) rural land; and 4) land use planning.

The forum was organized in the framework of a Letter of Agreement between FAO and OXFAM-Chad aiming at mobilizing and strengthening the capacities of civil society actors to actively participate in the process of preparing the national land policy in Chad.

The results and recommendations of the forum will be presented to the multi-stakeholder committee in charge of preparing the land policy and the revision of the land code.

The preparation of the land policy is a major step in the inclusive land reform process, initiated in 2018 with the review of the draft land code. This process is inspired by the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests (VGGT) and the Framework and Guidelines on Land Policy in Africa.