CONFERENCE THEMES

Agrarian reform has been carried out in many countries in an effort to reduce conflict in, and improve the livelihoods of rural communities. While inequality in rural areas continued, other approaches, including market-led reform, have been explored, and agrarian reform was relegated to the sidelines.
At the GLF, we will revisit the achievements and challenges of agrarian reforms - and extract lessons and insights that are valid beyond the different contexts in which it has taken place and that contribute to our understanding how agrarian reform can be implemented to contribute to inclusive and sustainable rural and urban development.

Land grabbing made headlines a few years ago, and although it may have fallen off the front pages, it continues to destroy communities worldwide. At best, international land deals for agricultural production, forestry, mining and conservation promise economic growth, job creation and poverty reduction. At worst, these deals turn into land grabbing because they fail to respect human rights standards, including Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) of Indigenous Peoples, are in disregard of social, economic and environmental impacts and push women, men, and communities off the land they depend on. Efforts to prevent land grabbing, including the development of guidelines, pushing for transparency on contracts and resistance by social movements, have not significantly reduced the global rush for land.
It’s time to learn from and re-examine national and global mechanisms and initiatives and find more effective ways to prevent land grabbing.

Hunger and malnutrition continue to be a huge problem, despite global food production on the rise and countless programmes and initiatives to ensure food security. There is growing awareness of hunger being a result of unequal access to food - and not of a lack of food produced, though the link between land rights and access to food needs more attention. Securing the rights of women, men and communities means giving control to those depending on land to decide how to use it for their own benefit, over what to produce, trade and consume, what food systems they want. Participants will continue the debate on food security and food sovereignty, learning from each other and developing recommendations on ensuring equitable and just production of food.

Addressing gender issues in access, use and control over land is an essential part of people-centred land governance and ensuring land rights for women contributes to reducing poverty. Despite increasing awareness of women’s critical role in agriculture and rural development, a gap between de jure and de facto status of women’s land rights persists in many countries, with discriminatory customary or statutory laws and policies negatively impacting women’s status within the household and community.
Promoting land rights for women - whether individual, jointly with spouses/partners, or in a community, means enhancing women’s ability to take part equally in decision-making and defend their rights over land and the benefits derived from it. At the GLF, women’s land rights will be addressed across all plenaries and sessions.