Exploring the Potential for a LAND Partnership with Indonesia

The International Land Coalition (ILC) is a global alliance of intergovernmental, governmental and civil-society organisations. The mission of the Coalition is to work together with the rural poor to increase their secure access to natural resources, especially land, and enable them to participate directly in policy making and decision-making processes that affect their livelihoods at local, national, regional and international levels.

The strength of the Coalition lies in the different spheres of influence and activity of its partners in over 30 countries. The Coalition is governed by the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD, also the host organisation), the European Commission, FAO, the World Bank, and the World Food Programme (WFP), as well as 8 Civil-Society Organisations. The Coalition's aim is to foster a convergence of efforts by intergovernmental, governmental, multilateral and civil-society organizations.

LAND Partnerships or Land Alliance for National Development is an initiative of the ILC launched and endorsed at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg in August 2002. At the WSSD, the Government of Indonesia expressed interest to be among the 5 pilot countries for LAND, along with Philippines, South Africa, Guatemala and Brasil. The objectives are to:

• Develop or strengthen existing country-level, multi-stakeholder alliances, coalitions, commissions or such other convening mechanisms suited to country requirements that can provide a forum where those affecting and those affected by decisions on land access, use and management can convene to examine pertinent issues;
• Provide a mechanism to advise, debate and negotiate the implications, effects and benefits of proposed policy or programme changes or needs for change;
• Identify, within or through exchanges with other countries, the policy, programming and service-delivery systems that have successfully created enabling conditions to improve access to land by the rural poor;
• Provide a venue to harmonise external support to land initiatives and requirements;
• Support pilot testing of joint actions or programmes and for undertaking action research that can inform public policies and programmes; and,
• Provide an arena and resources for innovation and testing the replicability of pilot projects.