Senegal River basin © FAO / Jane Hahn About one hundred stakeholders from Mauritania, Mali and Senegal and from sub-regional organizations gathered in Dakar during 30 May - 1 June 2016 to review activities on governance of tenure and the Voluntary Guidelines in the countries. The meeting also provided training for key stakeholders, including parliamentarians. A new project “Improved governance of tenure for shared prosperity in the Senegal River basin” was launched...

2016: Putting the Voluntary Guidelines into action Four years since the Voluntary Guidelines were endorsed by the Committee on World Food Security as the global consensus on improving tenure, their principles and processes are inspiring people around the world to take action. With wide ownership by governments, civil society and the private sector, they represent an unbiased framework in which new conversations on tenure are taking place, new skills are being...

General Recommendation on the rights of rural women On 3 March 2016 the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women adopted a General Recommendation on the rights of rural women that identifies the Voluntary Guidelines as a standard for gender mainstreaming. The General Recommendation calls on states to integrate and mainstream a gender perspective in all agricultural and rural development policies, strategies, plans and programmes, enabling rural women to act...

Albania The Immovable Property Registration Office in Albania has introduced several innovative solutions to help professionals make the best use of information technology in line with the Voluntary Guidelines. The team working on information technology took the initiative to share disaggregated data, including statistics, and information on the benefits of these innovations to help decision-makers. The team considered how an effective strategy can improve communication with internal and external users...

Civil society and grassroots organizations: developing capacity to use the Voluntary Guidelines in countries In seven countries (Guatemala, Malawi, Myanmar, Nepal, Niger, Senegal and South Africa), a training programme enabled civil society and  grassroots organizations to increase their use of the Voluntary Guidelines. The  joint development and testing of a modular framework helped participants to  reflect on their own situations and how they could apply the Voluntary  Guidelines. Guatemala and Nepal were...