The Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of national Food Security (VGGt) represent a new international legal instrument, which was adopted unanimously in 2012 by the United nations Committee on World Food Security (CFS). the Guidelines are a soft law instrument that does not create new, legally binding obligations for states or responsibilities for private actors, but that applies existing governance standards, particularly for human rights, to the management of land.

Why are the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests important?

Humanitarian and development organizations working in conflict-affected settings have a particular responsibility to do no harm and contribute to the wellbeing of the population without bias. The highly complex, politicized realities of work in conflict- and post-conflict settings often require quick, pragmatic and results-oriented decisions, the foundations of which remain frequently implicit. Such decisions might follow an intrinsic logic or situational pragmatism rather than intensive deliberation.

The key question in this article is the extent to which current real property expropriation practices in Kigali city promote spatial justice. Current studies focus on the ambiguous manner in which real property valuation had been regulated by the expropriation law of 2007, leading to unfair compensation and various conflicts between expropriating agencies and expropriated people. Following its amendment in 2015, the law currently provides clearer procedures for valuation and fair compensation, based on the market prices.

Kenya has been integrating climate considerations into various legal and governance instruments for some time. Notably, there has been progress made in planning and implementing policies, projects and programs in key economic sectors in order to align Kenya with the international community’s approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and promote climate resilience.

Includes situation analysis, the vision, rationale, guiding principles, objectives, measures, implementation, legal framework. A monitoring and evaluation framework for policy implementation will be developed, as will selected indicators to monitor the policy performance. After 7 years of implementation, a mid-term policy review will be carried out to determine progress achieved and to keep abreast with emerging trends in the sector.

With examples from throughout Southern Africa, examines the objectives, impetae, importance, principles and important elements of a land policy; the policy development process and policy implementation; the relevance of a national land policy for Uganda and emerging lessons.

Divided into 4 parts: land tenure issues today: historically unprecedented challenges; an analytical framework for land tenure; what land policies to meet the challenges of diversity and durability?; proposals for the French development aid position on land issues.

Analyses the analyses made of The Land Act, 1999, and The Village Land Act, 1999, by Issa Shivji and Liz Wily. Includes engaging with the ministry, a national debate, lessons for civil society, genuine decentralisation, the next steps, and what lessons for Oxfam. Has an appendix of articles on the Acts.

Focuses on the reported social and environmental impacts of large-scale land transactions (LSLAs) in Africa, with a focus on West and Central Africa (WCA). Provides an analysis of 18 case studies that are among the best-documented LSLAs in terms of their impacts covering Cameroon, Ghana, Liberia, Mali, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Zambia. Impacts were classified into five groups: tenure, land governance process, economic and livelihood, human and sociocultural, environmental.

Brief summary of 4 presentations at the Mokoro land seminar by Martin Adams (Mokoro) on FAO’s support for tenure, rights and access to land and natural resources: lessons from Mozambique; by Joseph Hanlon (LSE) on The Mozambique land grab myth; by Elizabeth Daley (Mokoro) on Current issues around gender and land; and by Joss Saunders (Oxfam) on Engaging in strategic litigation and working with lawyers on land, gender and access to justice.

Comprises introduction; immediate background; Lisa Jones’ summary of the National Land Policy; thoughts on the Policy now; the future – the key question of resources; NGO experiences elsewhere of implementing land policy and law; annexes with extract on land and settlement from the PRSP, and extracts from previous comments on the draft Land Policy. Suggests that, since the Policy is likely soon to be approved, LandNet Rwanda should focus its attention on implementation.