July 2016: The inaugural ‘State of the Debate’ report of the UK Department for International Development (DFID) programme on ‘Land: Enhancing Governance for Economic Development’ (LEGEND) takes stock of land governance initiatives around the world. It concludes that four years since the adoption of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (Voluntary Guidelines or VGGT), much more needs to be done to ensure that they are realized in practice. The report is featured in the July 20016 issue of the Governance of Land Tenure Newsletter of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO).

The DFID report opens with an overview of the main initiatives taken by diverse stakeholders to use, institutionalize and entrench the Voluntary Guidelines at local, national, regional and international levels. It also highlights several case studies that illustrate how different actor groups have promoted and used the Guidelines and the diversity of strategies pursued and partnerships established. The report also summarizes some of the work supported by the LEGEND Challenge Fund, launched in December 2015, which aims to pilot Voluntary Guidelines-aligned due diligence and other innovative and multi-stakeholder approaches to promote responsible land-based investment.

The report notes that while these diverse initiatives seek to contribute to the success of the Guidelines they also reveal the underlying debates about “the meaning and the politics of implementation.” It highlights tensions among actors that focus on the Voluntary Guideline’s role in improving existing state policy or business practices, and those that seek to implement a more transformative social justice agenda through emphasizing land redistribution and restitution.

Among some of the broader questions that need to be addressed, the report highlights issues around how to: align efforts to exert pressure on states from both the global arena as well as citizens and civil society; move beyond the current focus “land grabbing” by international investors to respond to growing inequality in access to land that is driven by domestic investors and urban elites in developing countries; effectively use “soft law” to change power relations and influence “hard law” at national level; ensure that the focus on pressuring and assisting private sector actors does not detract from the need to work with governments to comply with the Voluntary Guidelines; and improve coherence among the multiplicity of initiatives at various levels.

In its recommendations, the report notes the potential to further build on the synergies between regional and global frameworks to benchmark countries’ progress towards realizing the VGGT principles, and suggests that monitoring the land-related indicators adopted under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) could offer an opportunity to further entrench the VGGT as “the global standard” in land reform.

The FAO newsletter also features a publication by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) presenting good practices for dealing with compulsory displacement and resettlement that are consistent with the Voluntary Guidelines. The publication is intended for use by USAID operating units and their partners in ensuring that they understand, document and address risks associated with compulsory displacement and resettlement, especially the risk that projects may impoverish people who hold legitimate tenure rights.

Other developments highlighted in the Governance of Tenure Newsletter include training and capacity building for parliamentarians, civil society organizations and other stakeholders in diverse countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia. One of the initiatives discussed is a project to support small-scale farmers, pastoralists and internally displaced persons in the Darfur region of Sudan to improve the management of their fragile land resources and promote peaceful and sustainable development. The FAO and EU-supported project aims to facilitate access to croplands, livestock routes and pastures for rural communities, and support the development of dispute resolution mechanisms to address competition over natural resources. [FAO Governance of Tenure Newsletter – July 2016] [DFID Publication: Strengthening land governance: Lessons from implementing the Voluntary Guidelines] [USAID Publication: Guidelines on compulsory displacement and resettlement in USAID planning]