Access to Land and other Natural Resources for Improving Rural People´s Livelihood

Land is fundamental to the lives of poor rural people. It is a source of food, shelter, income and social identity. Secure access to land reduces vulnerability to hunger and poverty. But for many of the world’s extremely poor rural people in developing countries, secure access is becoming more tenuous than ever.  Global poverty remains a massive and predominantly rural phenomenon – with 70 per cent of the developing world’s 1.4 billion extremely poor people living in rural areas.  With regard to the shortages of rural labor and capital markets, land is a production factor of outmost importance and therefore crucial for securing rural people’s livelihoods.

The EU and its member states together with their partners have worked with land issues for decades and have achieved remarkable results at partner country level. A mix of different approaches adjusted to meet each country's needs has been used. These approaches have lead to greater legal certainty and a more equitable access to land.

Then main objective of the session is to further promote secure access to land and other natural resources and security of land rights as a fundamental component for development cooperation on sustainable rural development and food security. The session focuses the analyses of 4 cases of best practices from Africa, Latin America and Asia and is followed by an open discussion in order to draw concrete conclusions.

Among others the SULEDO-initiative from Tanzania will be presented. With the support from Swedish International Development Agency (Sida), the Land Management Programme (LAMP) initiated activities in the SULEDO forest in Kiteto District in 1996. Main activities included land surveys, border demarcation and subsequent land use plans for each village as well as the process of putting the SULEDO forest under the joint management of nine villages. In 2002 the SULEDO community was awarded the United Nations Development Programme Equator Initiative Prize for “extraordinary efforts to reduce poverty through the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity”.

This breakout session during the 3rd EU Forum on Rural Developmentin Palencia,Spain (http://www.ruralforum.info/menu-1-en.php) is organized by the EU Working Group on Land Issues. During the EU Heads of Agriculture and Rural development meeting of January 2009 it was agreed to re-activate the EU Working Group on Land Issues. The previous EU taskforce on land issues which started in 2002 developed inputs for the EU land policy guidelines. This taskforce stopped after the EU guidelines were approved in December 2004. The reinstated EU Working Group coordinates current efforts of the European Commission and Member States, shares relevant experiences, observes monitors and analyses local, regional, continental and global initiatives on land issues.

For further information please contact: Thorben Kruse (Thorben.Kruse@giz.de).