By M. Mercedes Stickler, Land Tenure and Evaluation Specialist, USAID.
Last month, I had the opportunity to take part in the inaugural Conference on Land Policy in Africa. This event—organized by the Land Policy Initiative—highlighted the fact that land is one of the most important development issues facing Africa today.
USAID Land Tenure and Property Rights Division Chief Dr. Gregory Myers's Remarks from Partners’ Support to the Voluntary Guidelines & Land Governance: Exploiting Synergies & Measuring Impact. Remarks posted as written.
A guest post by Nayna J Jhaveri, Ph.D., Resource Tenure Specialist, Tetra Tech
A guest post by Robert Oberndorf, Resource Law Specialist, Tenure and Global Climate Change Project
By Dr. Matt Sommerville, Chief of Party, Tenure and Global Climate Change Project.
At the recently concluded 2013 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference in Warsaw, Poland, negotiators agreed to a landmark set of decisions. After seven years of negotiations, United Nations (UN) member states reached a consensus on a framework to reward countries for REDD+ actions (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation).
[Read more on the background of REDD+ negotiations and the links to land tenure and natural resource rights.]
USAID is pleased to announce a first-of-its-kind partnership between the Governments of Ethiopia, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Federal Republic of Germany to improve rural land governance. Building on existing programs and the seven land country partnerships announced at this year’s G8 Open for Growth Summit, this new partnership will support greater transparency in rural land governance, promote responsible agricultural investment, and improve Ethiopia’s legal framework and practices related to rural land administration and land use.
The 2014 World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty will take place at the World Bank Headquarters in Washington, D.C. on March 24 - 27, 2014. The theme of the 15th annual conference is "Integrating Land Governance into the Post-2015 Agenda: Harnessing Synergies for Implementation and Monitoring Impact.”
A new report from the World Bank suggests that Africa, which is home to half the world’s uncultivated land, can significantly reduce poverty, achieve rapid economic growth, and increase food security by improving land governance systems and strengthening land tenure and resource rights. “Land governance issues need to be front and center in Africa to maintain and better its surging growth and achieve its development promise,” says Frank Byamugisha, author of the report and lead land specialist in the World Bank’s Africa region.
The New York Times reported that Greece’s land administration system is a major impediment to economic growth. After a history of occupations, wars, and shifting population centers, less than 7 percent of the country has been properly mapped, while most land transaction records are handwritten and lack clear boundaries or zoning. Property ownership is often unclear, especially in rural areas, and that has led to competing claims for property and a backlog of court cases.
In April, the U.N. Committee on Food Security (CFS) released the Zero Draft of the Principles for Responsible Agricultural Investment (RAI) in the Context of Food Security and Nutrition. The release of the RAI Zero Draft marks an important step in the process toward the adoption of a framework that will guide national regulations, international investment agreements, global corporate social responsibility initiatives, and individual investor contracts covering all types of investment in agriculture.
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