Global agenda: youth for land

Vision

Young people, in all their diversity, enjoy secure rights to land and territory to build a just, inclusive and sustainable future for food, climate and biodiversity.

Introduction

This document contains the pillars of a broader youth agenda that has been built through a collective process that lasted six months and involved the active participation of young people from all ILC's global youth platforms and working groups, as well as allied youth organisations in Colombia, in particular from the Catatumbo region.

The process culminated in the II Global Land Forum Youth, held in Ocaña, Catatumbo region, where 75 young leaders from Colombia, Latin America, Africa, Asia and the EMENA region met to exchange experiences, strengthen their capacities and agree on a common agenda. This agenda will guide the action of young people over the next three years, with the aim of advancing their meaningful participation in land governance and the defence of their territorial rights.

From this space we stand up to express solidarity with our comrades in Palestine, the Democratic Republic of Congo and other territories that suffer the scourge of genocide and multiple violations of their rights in defence of their land and their right to exist.

As rural youth we are on the frontline of interconnected crises: climate change, biodiversity loss, desertification, territorial dispossession, political exclusion and violence. In the face of these challenges, in addition to resisting, young people are leading transformative local solutions for sustainable production and ecosystem conservation, and today we propose an agenda for action based on the following strategic areas:

1. Climate crisis, biodiversity loss and desertification.

Rural youth are at the frontline of the climate crisis, biodiversity loss and desertification, phenomena deeply linked to policies and practices related to access to land and land use patterns driven by large-scale agribusiness, extractivism, carbon markets and the so-called "natural capital" . In the face of these challenges, young people not only resist their effects, but also lead solutions with high transformative potential such as sustainable consumption, community water management and the use of alternative energies. Initiatives with collective and non-violent economic approaches.

With secure land rights, access to resources, training and participation in decision-making, youth can scale these solutions to global impact. Their action combines sustainable innovation and commitment to a fairer and greener economy.

1. Ensuring security and protection of land rights in contexts of dispossession, forced eviction and criminalisation of young land and environmental defenders

In a global context of land inequality, young people are further excluded from access to and decision-making over land. Even so, rural, indigenous, Afro-descendant and peasant youth are part of the processes of struggle, mobilisation and generation of political proposals to guarantee the territorial rights of their peoples and communities.

The persistent insecurity faced by Indigenous Peoples and local communities over their lands and territories makes them vulnerable to forced evictions and human rights violations. Eviction implies the loss of other rights, such as the right to housing, education and food, putting the health of community members at risk. The precariousness of life caused by eviction has a particular impact on the lives of young people, whose projects are cut short. In this context, young people are part of the struggle for the defence and recovery of their land, as part of an intergenerational struggle.

1. Promoting indigenous peoples' and local communities' own science and knowledge systems to address the polycrisis

After centuries of caring for the land, Indigenous Peoples and local communities possess knowledge systems on land management that promote equity, unity and sustainable use of the commons. However, the expansion of agro-industrial models, land grabbing, loss of native seeds and the exclusion of youth from land policies threaten peoples' knowledge systems and sovereignty.

The way out of the polycrisis caused by the dominant model requires the inclusion of youth, the guarantee of their access to land, the promotion of agroecology and inter-scientific, traditional and intergenerational dialogue, as tools to strengthen rural economies, access to fair markets, the regeneration of socio-ecosystems and food sovereignty.

1. Youth leadership and participation

Youth, particularly rural youth, continue to be under-represented in decision-making spaces that affect their territories and their future. This exclusion limits the development of truly inclusive policies and practices and weakens people-centred governance processes. Furthermore, youth leadership capacities are conditioned by restrictions on the exercise of fundamental rights such as political participation, freedom of expression, association and the right to be heard.

Faced with this challenge, it is key to strengthen youth leadership and their collective power through concrete actions that amplify their voice, guarantee their effective participation and promote enabling conditions for organised youth to influence land-related processes at local, national and global levels.

1. Long-term sustainability of youth initiatives

Ensuring the continuity, ownership and impact of youth-led initiatives requires going beyond the logic of one-off interventions. This implies facilitating their access to funding, technical support, legal empowerment and solid institutional alliances that allow them to consolidate lasting, autonomous and transformative processes beyond project cycles or temporary spaces of visibility.

Concrete actions in each area:

Climate crisis, biodiversity loss and desertification 2.

• Promote the creation and funding of a youth programme to identify, fund and implement key actions such as conservation of native species, afforestation with indigenous plants, restoration and protection of soil and water.
• Educate young people about the causes of the climate crisis, its effects and methods of resilience. Promote climate education among young people,
• Promote the meaningful participation of young people in international decision-making spaces, to make their demands and proposals visible and positioned in the climate agenda.

Guarantee the security and protection of land rights in contexts of dispossession, forced eviction and criminalisation of young land and environmental defenders.

• Establish a global youth observatory for land rights violations to hold perpetrators and accomplices accountable, including an "early warning" system to publicise threats.
• Provide guidance and support mechanisms for young land rights defenders and the dispossessed, including protection protocols, access to legal aid and funding.
• Create a global fund for Youth Land and Territory Defenders.

1. Promotion of indigenous peoples' and local communities' own science and knowledge systems to address the polycrisis.

• Developing learning resources that help preserve, promote and share the knowledge of Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendants and local communities in support of sustainable agroecology.
• The integration of science and traditional knowledge into formal education curricula.
• The promotion and defence of food sovereignty through access to solidarity and community markets, the preservation of local seeds and livestock species, among other measures.
• The promotion of inter-scientific, traditional and inter-generational dialogue.

1. Youth leadership and participation

• Promote youth policies and representation in government and key decision-making spaces at all levels.
• Strengthen youth-led organisations through funding and training to support sustained activism and development.
• Expand and disseminate existing youth leadership programmes, such as the ILC Youth Fellowship Programme, youth leadership schools and Youth Networks.

1. Cross-cutting actions

In a transversal way, we demand the recognition of the diversity of youth, with a gender and intercultural approach, and the long-term sustainability of our initiatives, with budget allocation, training and strategic alliances. We commit ourselves to strengthen our own networks and the network of ILC youth and their allies, to use our means to make our struggles visible, to exchange our knowledge and experiences, and to influence structural problems in our territories.

COLOMBIA

Specific agreements to work articulately within the period 2025-2028

As a result of a collective construction process that brought together national and regional youth organisational processes of ILC and its allies in Colombia and the Catatumbo region, such as the Catatumbo Youth Network, YPARD, ASOJE, MEEJR and the youth of other organisations participating in the Global Land Forum, the following themes were prioritised in the Political Roadmap of the National Organising Committee of the Global Land Forum, with the following emphasis on youth:

1. Agrarian reform: Rights of rural, peasant, indigenous and Afro-descendant youth to land and territory.

• Guarantee the active participation of young people in the implementation of the Agrarian Reform.
• Generate strategies of generational complementarity for the recognition of youth as subjects of rights to land and territory.
• Define goals and allocate budgetfor rural youth in the land adjudication and formalisation programme, including land of collective and community interest.
  
  

1. Transformation of agrifood systems: through the guarantee of the right to food, food sovereignty and autonomy, and public health.

• Promote the transformation of food of peasant, indigenous and Afro-descendant origin, guaranteeing the human right to healthy and culturally adequate food.
• Eliminate regulatory barriers, developing norms and institutions that respond to territorial realities, promoting innovation and sustainability hand in hand with rural youth.
  
  

1. Climate justice, energy transition and extractivism through the protection of biodiversity with a territorial approach.

• Guarantee the participation of rural, indigenous, Afro-descendant and peasant youth in public environmental and land-use planning policies, and in the development of related communication and awareness-raising strategies.

Based on these commitments, the youth organisations, in alliance with ILC, FAO, CNT Colombia, -CINEP and CONSORNOC, managed to agree on some general commitments through dialogue and advocacy with public entities, such as:

- Implementing a roadmap for rural youth that allows structuring an instance of participation for the Agrarian Reform.

- Approve and implement the public policy for rural youth, with an ethnic and peasant approach.

- Guarantee the participation of young people in territorial management, planning, articulation and development, structuring specific institutional guidelines that allow for this.

The public institutions that have participated in this process of dialogue and consultation are:

• The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development
• The Ministry of Equality and Equity
• The Ministry of the Interior
• The National Planning Department
• The National Land Agency and the Land Renewal Agency.

Youth for Land
Land for Youth

photo credit: @Fao_Colombia