Land and development

Context

Land is an asset of enormous importance for billions of rural dwellers in the developing world. In recent years, issues of access to land and natural resources have been of growing concern to developing country governments and donors. Land tenure is at the heart of a number of rural development issues. Access to land is linked to some basic economic and social human rights, such as the right to food. Land tenure has strong linkages to poverty reduction and food security, economic development, public administration and local government, private contract law, family and inheritance law and environmental law (to mention but a few). Despite being central to peaceful development, economic growth and sustainable resource use, land issues have often been ignored. Donor governments have been reluctant to get involved in land related programmes, in part because of the perceived political risks. At the same time, despite their central contribution to economic growth, land and agricultural development have failed to receive adequate attention in the Poverty Reduction Strategy processes.

Much evolution in experience and thinking has taken place over this period, with several multilateral and bilateral donors drawing up new policy papers on land with increasing land-related challenges. Climate change and expanding biofuel production is likely to lead to greater competition for access to land. For the millions of farmers, pastoralists, fishers and forest dwellers with no formal land tenure rights, this increased competition poses a tremendous threat to their livelihoods. Sound land tenure policies and planning will be crucial to ensuring that these men and women do not fall into even greater hardship. Basic and well-acknowledged problems like women's rights to land access has not been resolved and still plays a minor role policy dialogue. Additionally, over the past 12 months, acquisitions of farmland in Africa, Latin America, Central Asia and Southeast Asia have made headlines in a flurry of media reports across the world. This is rightly a hot topic that the Platform should address because land is so central to identity, livelihoods and food security.