The 2019 Conference on Land Policy in Africa ended in Abidjan Friday November 29th with academic institutions pledging to work with traditional leaders in coming up with solutions to land governance challenges on the continent in an effort to root corruption out of the land sector.

Stakeholders attending the five-day conference made various calls at the end of the meeting but perhaps the most profound one was by the continent’s traditional leaders who made a commitment to review cultural practices and beliefs that have long denied women access to land.

Next week the Conference on Land Policy in Africa - Winning the Fight against Corruption in the Land Sector: Sustainable Pathway for Africa’s Transformation, will take place in Abidjan. The African Union recognises that corruption is a key factor hampering efforts at promoting governance, socio-economic transformation, peace and security, and the enjoyment of human rights in the Member States.

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Women sitting in verandahs and pounding oil palm fruits, while chewing betel nuts, is a common sight in Saikaa village in Mizoram’s Kolasib district. Small plastic bottles of palm oil line the houses adjoining the roads that weave their way across the forests in this mountain village. Five years ago though, before Kolasib was declared India’s first oil palm cultivation district, the scenes here were different.

"Gender, Land and Mining in Pastoralist Tanzania" is the product of rigorous field research over two years by WOLTS team members from Mokoro and HakiMadini. Significant stresses from mining, population growth and climate change, as well as disturbing levels of violence against women have been uncovered in this study of two traditional pastoralist communities in Tanzania. Initial findings are based on repeat rounds of participatory fieldwork by the WOLTS team and have already received attention at national and local level.

Hundreds of people gathered on Samoa's biggest island on Saturday to protest the abuse of customary land rights.

A spokesperson for the Samoa Solidarity International Group said 700 people came from across Savai'i to push for a repeal of the Lands and Titles Registration Act 2008.

According to Unasa Iuni Sapolu, the act allows communally held customary lands to be leased to third parties without the consent of all landowners.

She said this alienated some of the owners from their land and the opportunities it offered.

SARAWAK Dayaks, angry over two recent Federal Court decisions which failed to recognise native customary rights, will gather at the Palace of Justice in Putrajaya on Tuesday to “make their feelings known” at another appeal case set to go against them.

Across the globe, grassroots organizations are combatting injustice by helping people to understand, use, and shape the laws that affect them. Few of them receive the recognition they deserve. We want to change that. 

In 2015, Namati launched the world’s first competition to celebrate great deeds in the field of legal empowerment. This year, the biennial Grassroots Justice Prize returns -- bigger and better than before. 

Deadline: 01/10/2017

“Protecting our land for a prosperous future”

Monrovia - The Civil Society Working Group on Land Rights Reforms has expressed its dismay over the exclusion of CSOs and Liberians from the legislative consultative forum over the Land Rights Act between the Liberian Land Authority (LLA), lawmakers and other stakeholders.

Land governance disputes dominate civil and criminal cases in India

With detailed field studies from Kenya, Cameroon, Uganda and Namibia, a new report sheds light on the consequences of extractive industries on land rights and indigenous peoples in Africa. “Worrying that so little is done to protect the environment and the indigenous peoples,” says the report.

 

Environmental degradation, cultural ethnocide and gross human rights violations: For indigenous peoples these are some of the consequences of the current global race for natural resources and raw materials.