April 2021

Legal tools newsletter

The Legal tools newsletter is sent out every four months to keep you updated on Legal Tools for Citizen Empowerment, a collaborative initiative to strengthen local rights and amplify local voices in natural resource investments.

In this issue we focus on civil society reshaping the land rights agenda, what works for women’s land rights and contracts for commercial agriculture.

Participants to the 2021 Land Tenure Week in Yaoundé, Cameroon (Photo: CED)

Civil society is driving forward the land rights agenda

Dear colleagues,

In this edition we highlight the critical role civil society organisations (CSOs) continue to play in shaping policy debates on land governance and demanding accountability for the respect of land rights at the national and local levels.

In Cameroon, the Centre for Environment and Development (CED) and the Network to Fight Against Hunger (RELUFA) – our partners in the LandCam project – mobilised over twenty CSOs to draft and disseminate a land policy vision (French version) for Cameroon’s land tenure reforms. The land vision calls for an improved governance framework to secure the rights of indigenous peoples, women, and the recognition of customary land ownership for rural communities. It was presented to parliamentarians and the Cameroonian government, and at multi-stakeholder policy dialogues during LandCam’s “Land Tenure Week”.

In addition to policy events, IIED’s civil society partners are working with rural communities to secure land rights and improve accountability for land rights violations. In Cameroon, CED and RELUFA are supporting indigenous communities in dialogue with large-scale investors whose activities have impacted their livelihoods. In Tanzania, the Tanzania Natural Resource Forum (TNRF) helped to secure the return of 27,000 hectares of land to four villages impacted by a biofuel plantation and TAWLA has scaled-up a program to support gender-sensitive governance of community lands. In Guinea, a coalition of CSOs have published policy recommendations for the country’s land tenure reforms (in French only) while supporting rural communities to seek redress for the impacts of mining investments.

Although the pandemic has threatened some gains in protecting land rights, we celebrate the achievements and resilience of our civil society partners.

– Brendan Schwartz
Senior Researcher, Legal Tools team

Blogs and webinars

Women using hoes in a crop field in Kilosa, Tanzania. (Photo: Mitchell Maher/International Food Policy Institute via Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

What works for women's land rights?

In this series of blogs, curated by Philippine Sutz, we collaborate with women and men from partner organisations Tanzania Women Lawyers Association (TAWLA) and IED Afrique to progress the ongoing debate on what works and what doesn’t work to strengthen women’s land rights in sub-Saharan Africa.

Screen capture of the blog on AfronomicsLaw.org

Research-to-Policy Transitions in International Economic Law

Lorenzo Cotula reflects on the need to develop more rigorous research methods, peer learning opportunities and how questions of strategy, reflexivity and agency can enrich our understanding of the relationship between research and policy.

Tungsten surface mining in Rwanda, a country among the top exporters of tungsten. (Photo: Fairphone, via Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0)

Secure land rights are now more important than ever

As many low-income countries are looking to their untapped natural resources as a way to support economic recovery after the pandemic, IIED's Nathaniah Jacobs and the Columbia Center for Sustainable Investment's Tehtena Mebratu-Tsegaye reflect on a new initiative to strengthen governance of land-based investments.

Young 'social mobilisers' interviewed more than 2,700 landless or untenanted families and gathered the data that was needed for the government to register their tenure. (Photo: copyright Kumar Thapa, CSRC)

Helping indigenous communities secure land rights in Nepal

A land rights project in Nepal is working with young people to map land claims and help more than 2,000 indigenous farmers get legal title to the lands their families have farmed for generations.

Ercilia Araya, leader of the Colla de Pai-Ote community (Photo: Gerardo Berrocal ADKIMVN/Observatorio Ciudadano, CC BY 4.0)

Protecting Indigenous lands: lessons from Chile

Chilean NGO Observatorio Ciudadano is supporting Indigenous People to combine Human Rights Impact Assessments with investment chain mapping to hold international mining companies accountable.

Project updates

Empowering Producers in Commercial Agriculture (EPIC)

Rural producers in Malawi and Nepal have continued their efforts to address challenges affecting their trading arrangements. In Malawi, Nsuwadzi tea association secured dialogue with their main buyer and saw the beginnings of improved trading arrangements over time. Farmers are also assessing the feasibility of livelihood diversification strategies.

In Nepal, vegetable producers are working with a cooperative and local government to establish channels for marketing their produce, while landless farmers have accessed land and subsidised inputs, enabling them to farm and seek markets for their produce. Farmers have also provided input in the formulation of municipal and federal-level agricultural policy.

The Legal Tools team is delighted to collaborate on this project with the Women’s Legal Resources Centre (WOLREC) in partnership with Imani Development in Malawi, and the Community Self-Reliance Centre (CSRC) and the Nepal Agricultural Cooperative Central Federation (NACCFL) in Nepal.

Land tenure reforms in Guinea

The Legal Tools team has continued its collaboration with the Collective of NGOs for the Defence of Community Rights (COD-DC), a coalition of civil society organisations in Guinea, to influence critical ongoing policy reform processes related to compensation and resettlement in the mining sector, land tenure reforms as well as the adoption of an Agricultural Framework Law. The Collectif’s members have submitted policy analysis to government with the goal of enhancing the protection of community and women’s land rights, and engaged government in policy meetings.

Events and webinars

UNCITRAL Working Group III on ISDS reform

Lorenzo Cotula and Thierry Berger attended the 40^th session of UNCITRAL Working Group III on Investor-State Dispute Settlement Reform, which took place between 8 and 12 February. IIED is an accredited observer in this process. Together with CCSI and IISD, IIED also made a submission to provide comments on the Working Group’s draft work and resourcing plan. The submission outlines ways to increase inclusiveness of process and ensure developing countries’ issues are duly considered.

Producer agency and voice in certification schemes

A recent IIED webinar discussed the challenges affecting lack of small-scale producer voice in certification schemes, and ways to promote producer agency in standards setting worldwide.

Promoting producer agency in agricultural value chain contracts: peer learning (in a pandemic)

Thierry Berger and Emily Polack summarise highlights from a recent learning event on the role of contracts in promoting the agency of agricultural producers – and reflect on the process of sharing experiences virtually.

Publications and briefings

Contracts in commercial agriculture: enhancing rural producer agency

In commercial agriculture, contracts coordinate production and trade, linking input suppliers to producers, all the way to end buyers. This report analyses a pool of 40 of these contracts to provide pointers for enhancing rural producer agency at local to global levels. (Briefing Note)

Réformes foncières en Guinée : défis et perspectives pour la reconnaissance des droits légitimes

(In French only) This briefing note makes recommendations for the ongoing land law reforms in Guinea, outlining ways to recognise and protect legitimate land rights in the face of large-scale investments.

From spears to maps: the case of Waorani resistance in Ecuador for the defence of their right to prior consultation

This report discusses the experience of the Waorani people of Pastaza, who used community mapping and public interest litigation to protect their ancestral territories and secure respect for their right to prior consultation. (In Spanish)

How collective action can influence the direction of a land reform: lessons learned from civil society mobilisation in Senegal

This report discusses how CSOs within the Framework for Dialogue and Action on Land in Senegal (CRAFS) mobilised to influence the land law reform process between 2014 and 2016. (In French)

Résoudre les conflits fonciers par le dialogue : leçons aux marges d’une aire protégée du Cameroun

(In French only) This report distils lessons from implementing a multi-stakeholder dialogue in the Dja Biosphere Reserve as a strategy for resolving conflicts between communities, investors, local authorities and conservation agencies.

Socio-legal empowerment and agency of small-scale farmers in informal markets

Recent decades have seen increasing recognition of the role played by informal agricultural markets in sustaining rural livelihoods. This research provides insights on what socio-legal empowerment looks like for informal agricultural producers, and how it might be utilised to strengthen their agency.

Academic publications

Towards a Political Economy of the COVID-19 Crisis: Reflections on an Agenda for Research and Action

This open access World Development article discusses how the COVID-19 crisis has been reconfiguring public governance, drawing on experience concerning land tenure.

Public Participation and Investment Treaties: towards a New Settlement?

In this open access chapter from Public Participation and Foreign Investment Law, Lorenzo Cotula discusses barriers and opportunities for citizen engagement with the making of international investment treaties.