September 2019

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 women’s voices in land governance, innovative approaches to securing community land rights, and local procurement in mining.

Strengthening women’s voice in land governance

Dear colleagues,

Empowering vulnerable people and promoting gender inclusion in a world where inequalities are increasing is at the heart of IIED’s new strategy. The Legal Tools team has also long been committed to generating evidence on how to achieve gender-equitable land governance.

In the past three years, we have been working with partners to develop bottom-up approaches aimed at promoting women’s participation in land governance in East and West Africa. As we are about to embark on a new phase of this project, several outputs present the results from these approaches:https://www.tawla.or.tz/

A research report distils insights and lessons learned, building on a similar approach to document innovative legal empowerment initiatives through the voice of grassroots practitioners in West Africa
Our partners also shared their experiences through a webinar that we convened
A ‘longread’ highlights the impacts that the initiatives have had on women’s lives so far, and
A briefing note was produced with our partner TAWLA to explore policy options to ensure gender-inclusive land governance at scale in Tanzania.

Please find all these publications below, which we hope you will find useful.

— Philippine Sutz
Senior researcher, Legal Tools team

Blogs, webinars and longreads

Making their voices count: the African women protecting their land rights

Combining written analysis and video interviews, this longread details the impacts on women’s lives of three approaches developed by IIED partners in Tanzania, Ghana and Senegal to reinforce land governance structure in rural communities to make them gender-inclusive.

Local solutions to strengthen women’s voices in land governance

With increasing pressure on land in sub-Saharan Africa, how can the voices of women be included in local decisions over land? Land rights practitioners from our partner organisations in Tanzania, Ghana and Senegal gave presentations in a recent IIED webinar to share their experiences.

Why procurement should be the "next frontier" in transparency for mining

Mine sites often spend more on obtaining goods and services than anything else. Jeff Geipel of Mining Shared Value says this procurement needs better data and transparency – but it has the potential to become a lever for economic and social development.

Reconsidering the Foundations of Natural Resource Contracts: From Concepts to Practice (UEA)

Lorenzo Cotula argues that addressing the challenges of natural resource contracts requires reconsidering the foundations on which contracting rests. This blog is part of an online mini-symposium on foreign direct investment in the natural resources sector, hosted by the University of East Anglia.

Rebalancing power in the Kenya-UK green bean value chain

A recent IIED webinar discussed an initiative to overcome hurdles for farmers and workers to secure a stronger voice and influence trading arrangements within the Kenya-UK green bean value chain.

Project updates

Community Land Protection Initiative

IIED, in collaboration with Namati and the International Land Coalition, convened an international lesson-sharing event as part of the Community Land Protection Initiative (CLPI). Land rights practitioners from Chile, Indonesia, Liberia, Nepal, Philippines, Peru, Uganda, Italy and the United States swapped ideas about innovative approaches to securing community land rights. Watch the first in a series of videos documenting the workshop, which took place in a farm in rural England.

Supporting civil society in Guinea’s compulsory land acquisition reform

Working with COD-DC, a Guinean civil society coalition, the Legal Tools team developed a technical analysis of a draft regulation on compulsory land acquisition in the mining sector, benchmarking it against international norms and guidelines. COD-DC presented our work and theirs at a multi-stakeholder workshop, including government officials, who agreed to include the recommendations in the next draft of the regulation. Further consultations are planned for later this year.

Rethinking international investment treaties and dispute settlement

Together with the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment and the International Institute for Sustainable Development, we made four submissions to the UN working group on reforming investor-state dispute settlement. The submissions reflect a concern about ensuring sustainable development is central to the reforms, and deal with issues such as third-party funding, multilateral investment treaty termination, and ways to protect the rights of third parties. More information is available in this news story, while the submissions have been posted on the working group’s website.

Securing land rights in Cameroon

To celebrate the International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples, we released a video interview (in French only, English forthcoming) with CED Secretary General Samuel NGuiffo and Bagyeli community leader Alain Nguiamba. They explain the mechanisms and the impacts of forced displacement on indigenous communities in Cameroon, and Nguiffo presents the solutions developed by LandCam to secure indigenous peoples' land tenure rights. You can subscribe to LandCam's website, www.landcam.org, to get up-to-date information about events and publications.

Supporting Mali’s mining law reform

Our briefing note on how to improve Mali’s mining legislation was presented in Bamako at a multi-stakeholder workshop convened by the Malian Publish What You Pay Coalition (PWYP) and at a meeting of the Association of Local Governments. Ahamadou Maiga, lead author of the briefing note, argued in favour of measures to improve mining contracts, support artisanal miners and create accountability mechanisms in the management of a yet to be launched local mining development fund. A number of these recommendations were incorporated into the new mining code, which was adopted last month.

Events

Mining local procurement presentation

Jeff Geipel of Mining Shared Value delivered a ‘critical theme’ presentation hosted by IIED in London on 10 June on the importance of local procurement in mining as a way to beat the resource curse. The event was attended by representatives of think tanks, universities, mining companies, and NGO practitioners. For those who missed it, Jeff’s presentation is available on IIED's SlideShare channel.

8^th Capitalization Meeting on the European Union Land Governance Programme

Sandrine Kouba of RELUFA and Brendan Schwartz of IIED attended the 8^th Capitalization Meeting on the European Union Land Governance Programme (18-21 June, Nairobi, Kenya) to learn from land tenure reforms ongoing in 14 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

LANDac Conference 2019

Lorenzo Cotula delivered a keynote speech at the LANDac annual international conference (4-5 July, Utrecht, Netherlands). Organised by LANDac, the Netherlands Academy on Land Governance for Equitable and Sustainable Development, the conference brought together researchers, development practitioners, policymakers and business professionals working on land governance.

Research reports and briefings

Rebalancing power in global food chains through a “Ways of Working” approach: an experience from Kenya
In Kenya, the horticulture sector engages millions of people in production of crops for export. However, farmers and workers in that sector can face challenges in securing their basic rights, decent working conditions and sustainable livelihoods. This practitioners’ write-up describes a collaborative initiative to tackle these challenges in the Kenya-United Kingdom green bean supply chain, and distils lessons for upscaling and replication.

A stronger voice for women in local land governance: effective approaches in Tanzania, Ghana and Senegal
In many rural areas across sub-Saharan Africa, the way land is accessed is shaped by long-standing norms, often characterised by patrilineal inheritance systems that exclude women from decision-making processes. This practitioners’ report presents three initiatives developed in Tanzania, Ghana and Senegal to strengthen rural women’s voices in issues of local land governance. Analysing key outcomes and lessons learnt, it provides recommendations for replication and upscaling.

How local rules can promote inclusive land governance in Tanzania
Growing commercial interests, population growth and conservation initiatives are increasing competition for land in Tanzania, and women tend to be disproportionately affected. This briefing describes an approach that supports communities to adopt village bylaws that are inclusive and ‘gender-sensitive’ to promote stronger and more equitable land governance.

Apes, crops and communities: land concessions and conservation in Cameroon
The land allocation process in Cameroon is investor-driven and does not appropriately balance economic, social or environmental considerations, posing a threat to conservation efforts and community livelihoods. This policy briefing suggests land law reforms that the government could implement to effectively address these issues.

Land rights: the missing link for food security in Cameroon
For decades food insecurity has been a challenge in Cameroon’s Far North region. This briefing highlights how devolving power to local institutions and ensuring secure land tenure for displaced people and host communities must be priorities to achieve sustainable food security for everyone.

Academic publications

“Cortec Mining Kenya Limited, Cortec (Pty) Limited, and Stirling Capital Limited v. Republic of Kenya”
In this article from the American Journal of International Law, Lorenzo Cotula and James T. Gathii discuss issues of public international law around the case of Cortec v. Kenya, where an investor-state arbitral tribunal held it lacked jurisdiction to hear a dispute concerning a mining project that the tribunal found did not comply with domestic environmental law.

“Between Promising Advances and Deepening Concerns: A Bottom-Up Review of Trends in Land Governance 2015–2018”
While much research sheds light on key trends in land governance, questions remain about approaches for collective bottom-up analysis led by land governance practitioners themselves. This study, carried out by Lorenzo Cotula, Ward Anseeuw and Giulia Maria Baldinelli, presents findings from an initiative to test such an approach, and discusses global trends in land governance over the period 2015-18.