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.
This course has been developed in response to the concerns about increasing large-scale land acquisitions and the need to increase investment in agriculture. The objective is to provide guidance to government authorities engaged in investment promotion, approval, and monitoring activities at all stages of the investment cycle.
Secure land tenure in rural landscapes is widely recognized as an essential foundation for achieving a range of economic development goals. However, forest areas in low and middle-income countries face particular challenges in strengthening the security of land and resource tenure. Forest peoples are often among the poorest and most politically marginalized communities in their national contexts, and their tenure systems are often based on customary, collective rights that have insufficient formal legal protection.
Our planet faces multiple and complex challenges in the twenty-first century. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development commits the international community to act together to overcome them and transform our world for present and future generations.
