This learning guide has been designed specifically to give civil society and grassroots organizations a deeper understanding of the Voluntary guidelines on the responsible governance of tenure of land, fisheries and forests in the context of national food security (VGGT) to enable the members of these organizations and their constituents to use the VGGT meaningfully and effectively to improve the governance of tenure in their respective countries.

This study aims to assess the applicability of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forest in the Context of National Food Security (VGGT) in urban and peri-urban areas. The study also aims to facilitate decision-making on the next steps needed to ensure the application of the VGGT in urban and peri-urban areas, including informing the implementers on how they can anchor the VGGT in their activities, i.e. to apply or use the VGGT in their work in urban and peri-urban areas.

Tenure cuts across many economic and social issues. Here we present a few of the key considerations that a company should internalize in order to act consistently with the intent of the VGGT.

This training package provides an introduction to the important, complex, and sometimes daunting theme of improving land governance as a means to enhance gender equality and grassroots participation in land matters.

This publication is intended to support the use of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security. It is not intended to contradict the language of the Guidelines as endorsed by the Committee on World Food Security on 11 May 2012 nor the role of states in their implementation

This guide provides tools to understand the Voluntary Guidelines on the responsible Governance of Tenure, which sometimes uses technical language that is not easy to understand for those who are not used to reading this kind of text.

To support the practical application of the OECD-FAO Guidance, in early 2018 the OECD and FAO launched an implementation pilot with over thirty companies and industry initiatives. The first stage of the pilot was a baseline survey to assess how companies and industry initiatives are implementing the OECD-FAO Guidance and other related international standards. This report presents the findings of the baseline assessment.

Enterprises involved in agricultural supply chains can create employment, raise labour standards and bring the technology to increase agricultural production or reduce pollution. But their activities can also contribute to food insecurity by leading to the eviction of local communities from their lands. Child labour and abuses of migrant workers and women are regularly reported. The production of some agricultural commodities leads to soil degradation, water resource depletion and deforestation.

This Guide aims to inform companies that hold land or purchase land directly from companies that hold land. It provides operational guidance for companies confronting “legacy land issues” and clarifies a company’s roles and responsibilities in dealing with legacy land issues in their existing holdings, while also providing direction on where to look for more detailed information and tools.

The objective of this document is to guide the corporates and investors understand how to respect peoples’ ’‘tenure rights to land, fisheries and forest”,and ensure that communities have access to remedies ‘acceptable to both parties’ when such rights are impinged or such potential is recognized.

The “Voluntary Guidelines on Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries, and Forests in the Context of National Food Security” (VGGT), endorsed by the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) in 2012, set out principles and internationally accepted standards for responsible practices and is the first comprehensive intergovernmental global instrument on tenure and its administration.

The Tenure Guidelines aim to serve as a reference, providing guidance to improve the governance of land, fisheries and forests so that it can contribute effectively to securing the right to adequate food. The Guidelines thus constitute an internationally agreed upon normative standard that assesses the actions and omissions of states, UN agencies as well as international organisations with respect to the way they regulate land, fisheries and forests in specific situations. See box 1 below.