Editorial by Madiodio Niasse, Director, ILC Secretariat

The Assembly of Members is ILC’s highest governance body. It meets once every two years. This year’s Assembly of Members in Kathmandu, Nepal, follows the one organized in 2007 in Entebbe, Uganda. Compared the previous Assembly of Members, the Katmandu meeting was innovative in many respects. In Kathmandu a clear distinction was made between the Conference part of the event (conference used as an open forum for experience sharing), and the business, governance part, reserved to members. A second innovation is that more than in previous meetings, ILC members in Asia played a key role in the preparation and animation of the Nepal Assembly of Members (AoM):  ANGOC (a regional civil society network based in Manila) managed the CIDA-funded components of the Assembly. CSRC and MODE helped establish and played a lead role in the Nepal Coordinating Committee for the AoM. A third innovation is the prominent role played by the host-government. The Government of Nepal, through the Ministry of Land Reform and Management co-hosted and c-organized the Conference part of the AoM. This helped ensure a high-level of participation by Nepali authorities in various sessions of the Conference. The Roundtable on the land reform process in Nepal was one of the most successful sessions of the Conference. The quality of the collaboration between ILC and the Government of Nepal was an excellent illustration of the feasibility and benefits for ILC to actively engage with governments.

These innovations, and an exceptionally favorable context, contributed to the success of the event. There is probably no better context than Nepal today to illustrate the high relevance of ensuring equitable access to secure land rights. The Nepal event also took place in a global context of unprecedented level of international land transactions. The 180 delegates who traveled long distances to attend the Conference part of the AoM and the many participants from Nepal had therefore much to talk about.

The governance part of the Assembly of Members made important decisions. These included the expansion of the ILC membership base from 65 to 84 institutional members, the adoption of a membership contribution policy, and agreement among members on a roadmap for the approval of the revised Constitution, from now on called “Charter and Governance Framework”.

The innovations in the organization of the event, the high relevance of land issues in the Nepal and global contexts today, and the important governance decisions made by members, have all contributed to the great success of the ILC 2009 Assembly of Members, a success hailed by most participants.

International Land Coalition meets in Nepal

This quarterly Newsletter has two sections: it focuses on the upcoming ILC Assembly of Members ) in Nepal (21-24 April 2009, while at the same time reporting on major events within in the Coalition since December 2008.

The General Assembly of Members will bring together about 150 participants from 36 countries to debate both ongoing and emerging land-related issues and give direction to the work of the ILC for the next two years.

In today’s context of exploitation and commercialisation of land the challenges to land governance are greater than ever before. Nepali and international participants will have an exceptional opportunity to learn from each other and to exchange experiences and possible solutions. These challenges are certainly key factors which explain the interest that the AoM is attracting. In addition to long term demographic pressures on land, as a result of the energy and food crisis we are experiencing an unprecedented intensification of land transactions. The world is clearly insufficiently prepared to deal with their scale. The prospects of an expanded carbon market to mitigate global warming also create new incentives to invest in forest conservation and restoration in a context of increasingly competing claims over forest lands. In a context where there are more questions than answers, ILC members and partners see the General Assembly as an opportunity to share experiences and views on these trends and explore possible options for pro-poor responses.

There is certainly no better location than Nepal to debate today’s challenges to land governance. There seems to be a broad consensus in Nepal that land reform is the key to achieving sustainable development and a lasting peace after decades of armed conflict. But in Nepal, as elsewhere, issues surrounding land access and tenure rights are complex and difficult to solve, in part because of their multiple social and political ramifications. Nepali and international delegates are thus eager to learn from each other, with the understanding that land issues are complex and most often context-specific.

The Conference component of the Nepal event (21-23 April) is the moment when ILC members and representatives of donor agencies, and partner organisations share their ideas and regional and country experiences.

During the business component of the event (24 April), ILC members will discuss important governance documents, including the proposed revised Constitution and the membership contribution policy document. The approval of these documents will mark the end of a profound governance reform process in which ILC has been engaged in the last two years.

As in previous biannual Assemblies of Members, the Nepal meeting promises to be a crucial moment in the life of ILC. The discussions planned to take place in Nepal on emerging challenges to land governance internationally, and in the context of the host country, as well as other developing countries will indicate that now, more than ever before, ILC’s role as a multi-stakeholder platform for information sharing, dialogue and advocacy is critical. I am therefore confident that in Nepal, ILC members will reaffirm their commitment to the ILC mandate, welcome new members and complete the governance foundations upon which a stronger and more effective member-driven Coalition can emerge.

Ninehundredandtwentythreemillion

On World Food Day 2008, FAO announced that the number of undernourished women, men and children has increased to 923 million. This is despite international efforts to collaborate in overcoming hunger, including the Millennium Development Goals and the processes of aid effectiveness defined by the Paris declaration.

Where have we been misguided? There are clearly deeper causes of this abject failure to meet the basic human right to be free from hunger and poverty.

The International Land Coalition was created in recognition of the root causes of poverty. Experience demonstrates that poverty can not be simply eliminated by working on its evident symptoms. Its causes must be removed. Individual and collective landlessness is a significant cause of poverty in today’s world.

In the financial turbulence that has marked 2008, a clear trend is emerging: a new global rush for land – for investment, for new agricultural production, for agrofuels, for carbon sequestration and for mineral extraction. These demands are driven by trans-national finance, including both governments and corporations. They risk distorting land markets and fuelling the exclusion of poor land users.

Current global trends offer new challenges for the achievement of ILC’s mission, but members are already working together to analyse these trends and their expected impacts (see http://www.landcoalition.org/program/cpl_index.html).

December 2008 will close the implementation of the two-year ILC Action Plan, which has brought many institutional and operational changes. These will be presented at the 2009 Assembly of Members, to be held 20th – 24th April in Katmandu. Dr Madiodio Niasse, the new Director of the Secretariat of the International Land Coalition, will lead ILC into this new phase. Welcome Madiodio!