On the sidelines of the land inequality report launch, ILC co-organised the Youth and Land Conference 2020. In this blogpost, Gerdien Archterberg, ILC Africa research intern, shares her experience of speaking to a wide range of stakeholders on youth and land issues.
Why would the African youth need to be involved in land governance?
This was the first question that popped into my mind when I first read the internship vacancy of ILC-Africa, to which I applied later in July 2020. From my very Dutch and white female youth perspective, land rights did seem to be a bit boring to be engaged in as a young person. However, after doing research for the past 3 months on ‘youth access to land in Africa and their engagement in land governance’ I started to reframe this question into ‘why is African youth not involved in land governance, as they are so heavily affected by it?’
As a Dutch student who has never been to Africa (and barred from travelling now due to COVID-19), the whole African tenure system and setting are quite new to me and even surprising.
On the one hand, this made it sometimes very hard to be ahead of all different aspects that are relevant to land related questions in the African context. On the other hand, it allowed me to ask new questions and see things from a different perspective. What was really striking to me was the importance of land for the African youth.
Here in the Netherlands, access to land and housing is of course also important, but as I learnt at the just-ended IGAD Youth and Land Conference, land seems to be even more important in the African context as it is a prerequisite for African youth to reach food security, gain economic empowerment and to create sustainable livelihoods.
The agricultural sector is still seen as a key factor for African development in which access to land plays a crucial role. Moreover, in several communities land is very much interconnected with the social norms and cultural values that are a part of peoples’ identity. For example, a case study I consulted says that a young person is only considered an adult if they have access to land so they can build a house and start a family.
But the youth are facing a lot of challenges in getting access to, control over and ownership of land. Challenges that are often mentioned are the dependency of inheritance, fragmentation of land and land governance practices that are in the hands of elderly men. Most African countries have a growing youth population which form a large part of their demographics. The 226 million that lived in Africa in 2015 are expected to double by 2055, according to the UN. In combination with higher life expectations, this results in accessing smaller plots of land at a later age for the youth. Besides accessing land through inheritance or land allocations by the traditional authorities, there are also possibilities to access land through government allocations and to rent or buy land on the land market. However, bureaucratic practices and lack of legal structures that acknowledge and secure land rights for youth make this pathway very difficult. Accessing rental and sales markets for the youth is also a big challenge, as these markets are often very insecure and expensive. Youth generally lack the financial resources to access land through this way.
One of the things that became really clear during my research is that youth are often not taken seriously in land governance spheres. One of my interviewees, who is a female youth who worked in the land sector, said: “I remember the times that I went to these meetings and you find that you are the youngest person in the room, and you feel that your voice is suppressed. You are scared because you know those are people that have been in land governance for 20 years or 15 years, and they look at you thinking, ‘what are you even doing here?’” This was confirmed in other interviews with other (female) youth in the land sector. This is a very important point as it is often acknowledged and pointed out by many actors that it is important that youth be at the table, and involved in land governance. After all, they are the ones that are going to inherit the laws and policies that are made today. However, there are many challenges that need to be overcome to make sure youth are really engaged and able to participate in land governance. Besides not being taken seriously, they also often lack information about their land rights and sometimes seem to be unaware of the need to be involved in land governance. This places them at a disadvantaged position.
The scientific literature is very much silent about youth engagement in land governance, and what their challenges and opportunities are. There are some examples of how conflict can change social settings within land governance, and there are some papers that stress the importance of good training programs and youth engagement in research about land governance. However, very little has been written about how youth can be engaged further, especially within traditional land management systems. For ILC, this might be an opportunity to investigate how their members deal with youth participation in land governance and what we can learn from each other. After all, it would be a missed opportunity for everyone if the youth have no voice in creating their own future, and the future of Africa.
References
Chigbu, U. E., Wanyonyi, A., & Antonio, D. (2020). Empowerment of youth through strengthening their land rights knowledge and research capacity: evidence from Eastern and Southern Africa. African Journal on Land Policy and Geospatial Sciences, 3(1), 129-142.
Diao, X., Hazell, P., & Thurlow, J. (2010). The Role of Agriculture in African Development. World Development, 38(10), 1375–1383.
IGAD youth land governance. (2020, November 24). Exhibition Day 1. Steering Committee Video [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xJl77EZKX4
Kobusingye, D. N. (2020). African youths; the forgotten category in land governance. A case study of post-conflict Acholi Region, Northern Uganda. Geoforum, 109, 135-142.
United Nations. (2015). Population facts: Youth population trends and sustainable development.
This blogpost is published as part of Ms. Achterberg’s intership program at ILC Africa under the supervision of Kevin Eze, Communications, Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist.
Find the original publication of the blog here on the ILC’s website
Posted: 9th September 2021 by Coordinator
IGAD endorsed Regional Women’s Land Rights Agenda
On 28 July 2021, the Ministers responsible for Lands and the Ministers responsible for Gender/Women Affairs from the IGAD Member States made history, when they as a Regional Economic Community put closing of the gender gap on land at the center of the Region’s Development Agenda. The IGAD Regional Women’s Land Rights Agenda was endorsed with the presence of 11 of the 14 ministers expected to be present at the event.
The Regional Women’s Land Rights Agenda is a framework document that will enable IGAD Secretariat provide the necessary support to its Member States in implementing gender and land projects for the next 10 years.
Click here to read the IGAD’s Women’s Land Rights Agenda
Click here to read the document with the outcomes of the IGAD Regional Women’s Land Rights Conference
Click here to read more information on IGAD’s website
Posted: 31st August 2021 by Coordinator
Lecture by Anthony Bebbington: Natural resource extraction: social justice challenges
Join LIVE the #KAPTalks with Anthony Bebbington of the Ford Foundation who will discuss extraction of natural resources as a social justice question, particularly in light of COVID-19 pandemic. The event will be hybrid, physical and online. Join us on 10th September at 14:00 CET / 12:00 GMT. The lecture is hosted by the University of Utrecht.
Click here to register to join the zoom session
Global Witness’s annual reports on the killings of environmental defenders are but one, awful, indication of the social injustices that can accompany the extraction of natural resources from the subsoil and from forests. The struggle for social justice in these environments has become yet more difficult under COVID, all the more so given the impacts of COVID on indigenous populations in many of these environments. These challenges seem likely to intensify downstream of COVID in the face of economic reactivation policies, closing civic space, the search for energy transition minerals, and a politics of urgency that risks undermining a politics of social justice. In this talk I explore some of these trends and the challenges they present to civil society and to philanthropies that support civil society. I will refer especially to the experience of the Ford Foundation, while also making a broader argument.
Go to the Kapuscinski Lectures website
Posted: 11th August 2021 by Coordinator
African Youth Engagement in Land Governance
On the sidelines of the land inequality report launch, ILC co-organised the Youth and Land Conference 2020. In this blogpost, Gerdien Archterberg, ILC Africa research intern, shares her experience of speaking to a wide range of stakeholders on youth and land issues.
Why would the African youth need to be involved in land governance?
This was the first question that popped into my mind when I first read the internship vacancy of ILC-Africa, to which I applied later in July 2020. From my very Dutch and white female youth perspective, land rights did seem to be a bit boring to be engaged in as a young person. However, after doing research for the past 3 months on ‘youth access to land in Africa and their engagement in land governance’ I started to reframe this question into ‘why is African youth not involved in land governance, as they are so heavily affected by it?’
As a Dutch student who has never been to Africa (and barred from travelling now due to COVID-19), the whole African tenure system and setting are quite new to me and even surprising.
On the one hand, this made it sometimes very hard to be ahead of all different aspects that are relevant to land related questions in the African context. On the other hand, it allowed me to ask new questions and see things from a different perspective. What was really striking to me was the importance of land for the African youth.
Here in the Netherlands, access to land and housing is of course also important, but as I learnt at the just-ended IGAD Youth and Land Conference, land seems to be even more important in the African context as it is a prerequisite for African youth to reach food security, gain economic empowerment and to create sustainable livelihoods.
The agricultural sector is still seen as a key factor for African development in which access to land plays a crucial role. Moreover, in several communities land is very much interconnected with the social norms and cultural values that are a part of peoples’ identity. For example, a case study I consulted says that a young person is only considered an adult if they have access to land so they can build a house and start a family.
But the youth are facing a lot of challenges in getting access to, control over and ownership of land. Challenges that are often mentioned are the dependency of inheritance, fragmentation of land and land governance practices that are in the hands of elderly men. Most African countries have a growing youth population which form a large part of their demographics. The 226 million that lived in Africa in 2015 are expected to double by 2055, according to the UN. In combination with higher life expectations, this results in accessing smaller plots of land at a later age for the youth. Besides accessing land through inheritance or land allocations by the traditional authorities, there are also possibilities to access land through government allocations and to rent or buy land on the land market. However, bureaucratic practices and lack of legal structures that acknowledge and secure land rights for youth make this pathway very difficult. Accessing rental and sales markets for the youth is also a big challenge, as these markets are often very insecure and expensive. Youth generally lack the financial resources to access land through this way.
One of the things that became really clear during my research is that youth are often not taken seriously in land governance spheres. One of my interviewees, who is a female youth who worked in the land sector, said: “I remember the times that I went to these meetings and you find that you are the youngest person in the room, and you feel that your voice is suppressed. You are scared because you know those are people that have been in land governance for 20 years or 15 years, and they look at you thinking, ‘what are you even doing here?’” This was confirmed in other interviews with other (female) youth in the land sector. This is a very important point as it is often acknowledged and pointed out by many actors that it is important that youth be at the table, and involved in land governance. After all, they are the ones that are going to inherit the laws and policies that are made today. However, there are many challenges that need to be overcome to make sure youth are really engaged and able to participate in land governance. Besides not being taken seriously, they also often lack information about their land rights and sometimes seem to be unaware of the need to be involved in land governance. This places them at a disadvantaged position.
The scientific literature is very much silent about youth engagement in land governance, and what their challenges and opportunities are. There are some examples of how conflict can change social settings within land governance, and there are some papers that stress the importance of good training programs and youth engagement in research about land governance. However, very little has been written about how youth can be engaged further, especially within traditional land management systems. For ILC, this might be an opportunity to investigate how their members deal with youth participation in land governance and what we can learn from each other. After all, it would be a missed opportunity for everyone if the youth have no voice in creating their own future, and the future of Africa.
References
Chigbu, U. E., Wanyonyi, A., & Antonio, D. (2020). Empowerment of youth through strengthening their land rights knowledge and research capacity: evidence from Eastern and Southern Africa. African Journal on Land Policy and Geospatial Sciences, 3(1), 129-142.
Diao, X., Hazell, P., & Thurlow, J. (2010). The Role of Agriculture in African Development. World Development, 38(10), 1375–1383.
IGAD youth land governance. (2020, November 24). Exhibition Day 1. Steering Committee Video [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xJl77EZKX4
Kobusingye, D. N. (2020). African youths; the forgotten category in land governance. A case study of post-conflict Acholi Region, Northern Uganda. Geoforum, 109, 135-142.
United Nations. (2015). Population facts: Youth population trends and sustainable development.
This blogpost is published as part of Ms. Achterberg’s intership program at ILC Africa under the supervision of Kevin Eze, Communications, Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist.
Find the original publication of the blog here on the ILC’s website
Posted: 10th August 2021 by Coordinator
Land 2022 Travel Award
Land (ISSN 2073-445X) is an international and cross-disciplinary, peer-reviewed, open access journal of land use and land management published quarterly online by MDPI.
Land will be awarding two Travel Awards for junior scientists. The applications will be assessed by an Evaluation Committee led by Editor-in-Chief, Prof. Dr. Andrew Millington.
The award provide financial support for the winners to attend an international conference in the field of Land to be held in 2022, in order to hold a presentation, present a poster, or both.
Candidate Requirements:
– Postdoctoral fellows or PhD students.
– Plans to attend an international conference in 2022 (oral presentation or poster).
Required Application Documents:
– Information of the conference the applicant is planning to attend and the abstract that will be submitted.
– Curriculum Vitae and list of publications.
– Justification letter describing the focus of the research (max. 800 words).
– Letter of recommendation from the supervisor, research director, or department head, which also confirms the applicant’s status as a postdoctoral fellow/PhD student.
The winners (two awardees) will each be awarded CHF 800 and a certificate.
Please submit your applications for the Land 2022 Travel Award online by 31 December 2021. Prizes will be awarded at the end of February 2022 and announced on the Land website.
Apply here
Last Updated: 30th July 2021 by Coordinator
Opportunity: Program Manager, Explore, RECOFTC Main Office
Application deadline: August 16th, 2021
At RECOFTC, we believe in a future where people live equitably and sustainably in and beside healthy, resilient forests. We take a long-term, landscape-based and inclusive approach to supporting local communities to secure their land and resource rights, stop deforestation, find alternative livelihoods and foster gender equity. We are the only non-profit organization of our kind in Asia and the Pacific. We have more than 30 years of experience working with people and forests, and have built trusting relationships with partners at all levels. Our influence and partnerships extend from multilateral institutions to governments, private sector and local communities. Our innovations, knowledge and initiatives enable countries to foster good forest governance, mitigate and adapt to climate change, and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations 2030 Agenda.
RECOFTC is inviting applications for the position of Program Manager for Explore, a research network and community of practice, which is dedicated to expanding and applying knowledge on forest landscape governance in Southeast Asia. The successful applicant will be based in the RECOFTC main office in Bangkok, Thailand, but a remote working arrangement may be considered for the first six months of the contract. The contract duration is for 24 months with a possibility of extension subject to funding availability and satisfactory performance.
Click here to read the Vacancy Announcement PCTS Program Manager Forest Landscape Governance Research Network_JPA2
Last Updated: 27th July 2021 by Coordinator
Opportunity: Postdoc position in ‘development-induced displacement and resettlement’
Deadline: 15th of August
Click here for the full vacancy
Postdoc position in ASPASIA project: ‘Inside the investment frontier (inFRONT)’ (1.0 FTE)
In recent years global investments in large-scale development projects – for energy production and transitions, infrastructure and urban development, nature conservation and tourism – have proliferated. These land-based investments are increasingly justified under the banner of sustainable development. Proponents argue that the investments are vital to close the dire infrastructural gap across the globe. Critical scholars contend that investment projects for greater public goods and national development generate few opportunities for local populations. However, the project-associated land acquisitions tend to displace people with little responsible follow-up. In this context, ‘resettlement’ is increasingly framed as a new development opportunity, in order to expand new frontiers of infrastructural development and create new jobs and alternative livelihoods for the displaced people, who are often portrayed as those in need of ‘development’.
Previous studies have focused largely on the problems of resettlement by focusing on inadequate compensation or housing and livelihood vulnerabilities in the new areas where the displaced are forcibly resettled. The cultural practices that are disrupted and therefore leading to social disarticulation are also widely problematized. However, these problems keep on being reproduced across various investment projects even when the projects follow the international guidelines or national legislations that oblige investors to conduct ‘environmental and social impact assessments’. The urgent question is: why? What are the structural and fundamental problems that create persisting problems associated with resettlement? What are the wider implications of resettlement for building more inclusive, sustainable and equitable societies? As resettlement projects are part of discourses of pursuing global sustainable development, development geographers need to explore theoretically as well as empirically what resettlement means for more equitable and sustainable development for all.
Want to know more? Click here for the full vacancy
Posted: 22nd July 2021 by Coordinator
Ready for some music?
LANDac’s first music playlist
We have added a new creative aspect to our platform in order to inspire you; through music. Songs that are somehow related to issues of land, and its meaning and significance are collected and can be found in a Spotify playlist: LANDac Songs of Our Lands. It consists of music from all over the world and the list will continue to grow overtime with new input.
Get inspired, start your week, end your day, dance around, walk outside with one click on this link: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6p0mRRPaKec2cWfW1dVihI?si=0b908a4cd8ca4dbb
Last Updated: 22nd July 2021 by Coordinator
Food Systems Summit; Pre-Summit
Wednesday, 28th of July, 08:00-08:50 CEST
From 26th-28th of July, the Pre-Summit of the Food Systems Summit will take place. During this pre-summit, on Wednesday morning, The International Land Coalition, the European Commission, The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), RVO & LANDac, Welthungerhilfe and the Land Portal Foundation will host a session on land rights called ‘Centrality of Land in Building Sustainable Food Systems’.
Food security and sustainable food systems are inextricably connected to land. The current food systems are evidently inadequate in addressing poverty, hunger and malnutrition worldwide, whilst an important number of the world’s hungry base their livelihoods on access to land and other natural resources.
Strengthened resource rights increases the likelihood that farmers invest in their land, boosting productivity and contributing to food security. Secure tenure of Indigenous Peoples over the forests they live, dramatically reduces deforestation and other forms of environmental degradation contributing to climate change mitigation.
For this reason, this session pays attention to the importance of land rights for food security and sustainable food systems, and learn from experiences in the field, and put land rights on the agenda of the Food Systems Summit.
Click here to see the full program
Click here to register
Last Updated: 22nd July 2021 by Coordinator
Opportunity: IIED Researcher – forests and prosperity, Africa
The closing deadline for applications is midnight of Friday 13 August
Interviews will be held 31 August
Click here for the full vacancy
About the company
The International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) is a policy and action research organisation promoting sustainable development and linking local priorities to global challenges. We are based in London and work on five continents with some of the world’s most vulnerable people to strengthen their voice in the decision-making arenas that affect them. With more than 100 members of staff working with associates and partners around the world, IIED has been at the forefront of policymaking in sustainable development for over 40 years.
The role falls within the Forest Team within the Natural Resources Group (NRG). The NRG aims to promote sustainable governance of natural resources by building capacity and promoting informed decision-making in communities in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Our priority is on local control and management of natural resources and other ecosystem services and on the necessary changes needed in national and international government to make this happen.
About the role
As a Researcher, you will take on an exciting, challenging role in which you will support our work to achieve equitable and ambitious outcomes in global decision making for flourishing forests and prosperous people.
You will lead projects and activities to build forests and prosperity, particularly through enterprise and value chains development work.
Under the guidance of, and supporting Senior Researchers, you will focus on:
– Contributing to the identification, implementation and monitoring of policy-oriented action-research on topics relevant to the team’s work
– Developing and undertaking capacity building, lesson sharing, policy support and advisory activities and provide backstopping to the capacity-building work of partners, particularly in forest enterprise and value chain development
– Conducting collaborative research with colleagues and/or partner organisations in low and middle-income countries and analyse and communicate findings to reach policy audiences
– Writing or co-writing research findings for publication and dissemination targeting different audiences and using different media
– Designing projects which support the group strategy following established guidance
Posted: 12th July 2021 by Coordinator
Opportunity (in NL): Projectadviseur EPRM – International Development, Rijksdienst voor Ondernemend Nederland (RVO)
Interessante vacature bij RVO
Functieomschrijving: Als ervaren projectadviseur EPRM (European Partnership for Responsible Minerals) richt jij je op de ontwikkeling en het beheer van partnerschappen in mineraal waardeketens (van illegale lokale mijnbouw t/m verwerkende industrie). Je bent één van de teamleden bij het inhoudelijk secretariaat dat RVO voert namens European Partnership for Responsible Minerals (EPRM). In de trajecten behandel je ideeën of aanvragen die bij het EPRM worden aangedragen, kom je met nieuwe ideeen en ben je in staat om werkgroepen bestaande uit diverse stakeholders te begeleiden. Bij de ontwikkeling en beoordeling van EPRM-initiatieven speelt een breed pallet van aspecten een rol, waaronder inhoudelijke, IMVO (mining & gender specifiek), juridische, administratieve en financiële aspecten. Je bent voldoende sensitief voor de problematiek in de doellanden en voor de betrokken partijen en hun belangen. Je bezoekt indien nodig de betrokken (EU) organisaties en beantwoordt vragen van deze organisaties.
Je beschikt over aantoonbare kennis op het gebied van verantwoorde mineralen en hebt ervaring met het begeleiding van partnerschappen en diverse werkgroepen. Je volgt de ontwikkelingen op dit terrein en levert hiervoor input voor de strategie, jaarplannen en uitvoering van het EPRM-secretariaat. Naast je inhoudelijke kennis heb je ervaring met internationale projecten. Je stelt de juiste vragen en bent doortastend in je aanpak. Daarnaast ben je ook in staat om praktische zaken uit te voeren en heb je een hands-on mentaliteit. Binnen RVO werk je samen met je collega’s van EPRM, de afdeling International Development en Internationaal Ondernemen op inhoud. Daarnaast werk je samen met je collega’s in de keten als Juridische Zaken, Financiën, Inkoop etc.
Een deel van je tijd ben je beschikbaar om bij te springen bij andere regelingen (bv Fonds Verantwoord Ondernemen of Fonds Bestrijding Kinderarbeid). Je kunt mogelijk worden ingezet op (meerdere) internationale programma’s binnen RVO die in opdracht van het ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken worden uitgevoerd. Extern onderhoud je intensieve contacten met diverse stakeholders zoals (lokale) overheden, ambassades, bedrijven, kennisinstellingen, NGO’s, etc. Ook bezoek je geregeld de doelgroeplanden om met bovenstaande stakeholders overeenstemming te bereiken over de inhoud en voorwaarden van de projecten en om toe te zien op de uitvoering van de activiteiten.
Meer informatie.
Deadline voor sollicitatie: 27 juli.