An Alliance of Members by Members

The members of the International Land Coalition meet every two years to review and advise on the strategic direction, policies and progress toward achieving the multi-year programme of work, and, in turn, the organization's mission. The Assembly of Members (AoM) is the supreme governing body responsible to ensure that the organization acts in compliance with the intentions of the members. The Assembly elects the Coalition Council which provides the executive board functions between the meetings of the Assembly.

The AoM met in Santa Cruz , Bolivia from the 19-23 March 2005. A number of important decisions were taken, directions established and activities endorsed.

In reviewing the strategic framework, the members recommended that the Land Coalition strive to:

• establish country-level land coalitions emulating the Land Coalition on the global level;

• build the Land Coalition into a network-of-networks through a plan of action to achieve a more horizontal network for improved strategic alliances among members;

• implement a country-focus approach for a limited number of countries per region, at the same time retaining other responsive initiatives to benefit the other members in the region; and,

• explore the possibility of issuing a yearly publication on the state of access to land.

The meeting endorsed the plans to develop a Land Reporting Initiative, more informally referred to as a "Land Watch", encouraged by the broad base of governmental, civil-society, UN and intergovernmental organizations to launch this project.

New members were welcomed including the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) along with ratification being provided to the memberships of Transborder Wildlife Association (TWA), The International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers Associations (IUF), LandNet West Africa and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). The meeting recognized, with thanks, the contribution by Social Development Foundation (SDF) (India), Uganda Land Alliance (ULA) and Associación de Organizaciónes Campesinas Centroamericanas para la Coperación y el Desarollo (ASOCODE) (Central America) to the Coalition Council, on which they had each served since the AoM in 2003. Don Marquez of Asian NGO Coalition (ANGOC), a continuing member of the Council, was also recognized for his role as the co-chair during the past two years.

While still in Bolivia, and immediately following the AoM, the Coalition Council, following normal protocol meet to elect the civil society co-chair, and address matters needing immediate attention. At this time Miguel Urioste, Fundación Tierra was elected as the co-chair; the council meeting was scheduled for October 10-11, 2005 in Rome and a nominating committee was established to clarify procedure to expand the membership and to co-opt organizations to the three vacancies on the Council.

The Assembly of Members, as with all Land Coalition activities, depends on our partners and donors. This conference was supported by Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Centro de Formación de la Cooperación Española - AECI, Fundación Tierra and the Ministry for Sustainable Development -Government of Bolivia.