Secure access to land and resources has become a critical issue for the millions of rangeland users that depend upon rangelands for their food and livelihood security. Most experience high levels of insecurity due to a number of factors including the lack of recognition given to their rights, the ease with which their land is appropriated for other uses, as well as changes occurring within local communities as many have become more individualised and commercialised.
How best to secure access and rights to resources including land is a matter of much discussion and debate from within the African Union to local communities seeking to protect a permanent water point. Opinions and conclusions differ. However a lasting solution is likely to include not only identifying the right tenure arrangement, but also establishing and supporting effective governance systems capable of defending the rights to land and resources for rangeland users.
A number of ILC and WISP members have been involved in piloting and developing policy for securing rights to resources in rangelands as well as participatory approaches to registration of land rights and land-use and management planning in rangelands. In order to inform, develop and improve these programmes and share lessons learnt with similar processes, a year-long learning initiative has been developed targeted at those working towards identifying better ways of securing rights to resources and land for local rangeland users. The initiative primarily focuses on Africa, but also supports cross-learning with Asia andLatin America.
In October 2010 a group of ILC members and partners met in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to develop the areas that the learning initiative could focus on. Consultations following on from this meeting further refined the key objectives. A background paper has since been developed exploring these areas in more depth. A major part of this initiative will be a ‘learning route’ – a planned physical journey for the core group of participants to explore the learning goals by visiting relevant experiences in which local actors have tackled similar problems in innovative ways.
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