WSSD Coalition Sponsored Events and Activities at Johannesburg

Event 2 Presentation of LAND Partnership at the Plenary Session on Partnerships: - 1 September 2002

LAND Partnerships was chosen by the WSSD Secretariat (one of 60 selected from more than 300 submitted) for presentation at the plenary session on partnerships. Miguel Urioste, Fundación Tierra, Bolivia, chaired the event. Phrang Roy conveyed IFAD’s support for LAND Partnerships and invited governments to join it in advancing the agenda on access to land. Representatives of approximately 40 governments, CSOs and intergovernmental organizations attended the event. The representative of the Government of The Philippines, Mr. Delfin Ganapin, explained why his country had decided to establish and support LAND Partnerships. Statements made during this event are given in Annex 2.

Statements Made at the Presentation of LAND Partnership During the Official Plenary on Partnerships 1 September 2002

Miguel Urioste, Fundación Tierra, Bolivia

Each international or bilateral agency has its own conception, perspective and programs on land issues. As part of the International Land Coalition from several developing countries we are trying to promote the establishment of national forums. Those forums must be diverse and heterogeneous but they can not be neutrals, because we are not neutrals. We strongly support the rights of the landless, peasants, and indigenous people, to the land and their territory.

Our main task as civil-society members is to empower the rural poor by supporting and increasing their own skills to access the land, the water and the forest.

To achieve alliances between governments and civil-society organizations, especially rural organizations, is urgent, to empower it depends to democracy in each of our countries. In many cases the landless, peasants and indigenous people do not participate effectively with equal rights in all the democratic institutions. There won’t be equal access to land if there is not participatory democracy.

In that way, we appreciate the support that The Philippines government has just given to us. To establish multi stakeholders alliances concerning access to land could be a realistic challenge in the northern countries but, on the contrary, it is much more difficult to reach alliances in our countries. The International Land Coalition wants to facilitate this dialogue.

We thank IFAD for housing the International Land Coalition and we invite all of you to strengthen our land partnership.

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Delfin Ganapin, Government of The Philippines and Philippine Council for Sustainable Development

The Philippine Council for Sustainable Development (PCSD) is the institution of The Philippines that is mandated to deal with all sustainable development concerns of the country. This is a multi-stakeholder body led by our National Economic and Development Authority and other government agencies with counterpart of civil society organisations and businesses in The Philippines.

PCSD took a very good look at the list of the many partnerships that was offered at the WSSD and we chose only a few and LAND Partnership is one of them. The reason for this is that land is critical to sustainable development in The Philippines. Our group decided a set of criteria what kinds of partnerships that will support WEHAB - water, energy, health, agriculture and biodiversity. In our context, LAND Partnership will support these focal concerns. Traditionally, we look at land as a way to increase productivity and income, and for national economic development. However, in the context of The Philippines, land has always been the cause of rebellion and up to now has been the cause of political conflict in the country. So land access and ownership is link to our goals of peace and solidarity enshrined in our Philippine Agenda 21.

Land is also a way to reduce vulnerability especially to indigenous peoples who would lose their land unless very serious policy changes are made and that ancestral domains are recognised by mainstream society. Land is also related to poverty. Unless, land is given to the poor then they would not be empowered and they would not cause the necessary changes that we need to create good governance. Land is also related to environmental security. We found out that when our upland populations are given security tenure to the land, they protect that land much better and they become the social touch to protect against encroachment into our remaining ports.

Land access, ownership and stewardship are very difficult tasks. They require serious policy changes. There is a need to upscale community-based action that has been already initiated so that they become national efforts. There is a need to package land ownership with capacity building so that the people themselves can create the capital, the credit and even link with the markets needed for the products that come from that.

The LAND Partnership, therefore, is a way where we can share experiences and best practices and we will be able to come together with like-minded people and organizations for more effective advocacy and the sharing of resources. It is also for us to have a mechanism for resolving conflicts without which violence will be the end product when people actualy use arms to get access to land.

Our delegation, The Philippines, would like to commit to support this LAND Partnership. In Bali, we were very much involved (in fact one of the few G77 countries involved) in the intense discussions on Type II partnerships because as you know many of us are worried that Type II partnerships would be a way of getting commitments away from Type I commitments. In these intense discussions in Bali, our delegation was the one that strongly advocated that any Type II partnership considered must lead to resolving and providing for community needs and that that it must reflect initiatives of communities because these partnerships meet community needs. We see that LAND Partnership meets those criteria quite well. That is the decision of the PCSD, to make our country and our government and the PCSD part of this LAND Partnership.

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