Les femmes possèdent moins de 20 % des terres dans le monde.

La moitié des petits exploitants agricoles dans le monde sont des femmes.

70 % de la nourriture de l'Afrique est produite par des petites exploitations agricoles féminines.

Photo: Landesa  (

Une fois de plus, les organisations internationales de développement (Banque mondiale, FIDA, FAO, USAID, GIZ et autres) se sont réunies pour discuter des Directives volontaires, qui ont été approuvées en mai2012. Un succès incontestable est d'avoir également associé le plus grand mouvement paysan, La Via Campesina, qui dès le jour de l'approbation a applaudi avec enthousiasme ce processus.

Our food systems are in urgent need of transformation, as humanity faces one of our biggest challenges yet; feeding a future population of 10 billion people with safe and nutritious food while keeping a healthy planet. Our food system has the power to tip the scales and transform the future of our planet and humankind.

La recherche doctorale fournit des éléments clés pour renforcer notre base de connaissances sur l'accès à la terre, la gouvernance foncière et les défis liés au développement, aux crises et à la résilience. C'est pourquoi LANDac réserve une place spéciale dans le programme pour discuter de leurs contributions.

COVID-19 may have forced the 50th anniversary of Earth Day to be commemorated online last year, yet millions of people participated in calls to action. As we begin to look beyond the pandemic, however, it's vital to remember that we cannot go back to business-as-usual as far as our planet is concerned.

What are the state-of-the-art and new approaches to land consolidation as part of integrated rural development strategies in North Africa and Near East? That was the main question around which several experts from Egypt, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia, and Turkey joined the FAO/ RVO roundtable discussion on land consolidation during the Second Arab Land Conference last February; a session which 110 participants attended – both in person and online.

The debate about compensation of former white farmers in Zimbabwe continues to rage. The compensation agreement signed in July agreed a total amount of US$3.5 billion to pay for ‘improvements’ to the land that was expropriated. After 20 years of discussion, this was a major step forward. However, there seem to be multiple positions on the agreement and little consensus, along with much misunderstanding. However, some things are happening, and a joint resource mobilisation committee has been established with technical support from the World Bank and others.

Last week the World Cocoa Foundation, a membership organization of more than 100 cocoa companies, held its annual partnership meeting in Berlin, Germany. The aim of the meeting is for governments, cocoa companies and farmers to identify and tackle the sector’s largest sustainability challenges. A 90-minute session was devoted to the topic of land tenure. The prominence of the session, as well as the seniority of the presenters – the Head of Sustainable Sourcing for Hershey’s and the Deputy Director General of Cote d’Ivoire’s Land Agency among them – is a powerful signaling effect.

Author: Ahmadou Aly Mbaye

Editor's Note: 

This week in Geneva, the Human Rights Council is expected to take a position on the follow-up to a draft Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other Persons Working in Rural Areas. Five years after the start of the negotiations, we are at a turning point.

The failure to secure the property rights of rural communities shows a clear policy gap between citizens and rights to land as per the Constitution and the attitude and practices of the state, traditional leaders, white farmers and mining companies in relation to such rights. 

Absent from the discourse spurred by the motion passed in the National Assembly on 27 February is what could be achieved in the interim for land reform programme using existing legislation while the country awaits a verdict on the constitutional amendment to determine whether is possible to expropriate land w