U.S. Announces Land Governance Partnership with Burkina Faso

On June 14, the United States announced a Partnership with Burkina Faso, in coordination with the G8, to improve land governance and strengthen transparency. The Partnership will build on progress achieved under the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Compact and the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition Country Cooperation Framework with Burkina Faso, which support a number of the principles of the Voluntary Guidelines for the Responsible Governance of the Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security. The partners will work together to: reduce land conflicts in rural areas, increase the recognition of household rights to land, and enable local land use planning for the equitable allocation and use of natural resources through the MCC Compact; and encourage shared learning, enhanced program coordination, and identification of gaps in policy, regulations and practical tools, with a particular emphasis on gender and transparency in land transactions. The announcement came at the G8 pre-summit, Open for Growth: trade, tax and transparency event. Under U.K. leadership, transparency in land transactions has become a major focus of the 2013 G8. “We need transparency over who is buying up land and for what purpose so that people get a fair deal when they sell or lease out their land and the property rights of people and communities are properly protected. Today G8 and developing countries have agreed to work together to make the most of these huge advances on both land and extractives,” said U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron. Dr. Gregory Myers, USAID Division Chief, Land Tenure and Property Rights added “resource governance has taken center stage as the G8 continues work started by the U.S. G8 leadership in 2012 to promote the Voluntary Guidelines. Congratulations to the U.K. for bold leadership on this issue.” In addition to the partnership between the U.S. and Burkina Faso, several other land transparency partnerships were announced, including: Tanzania (U.K.), Nigeria (U.K.), Senegal (France), Niger (EU), South Sudan (EU), and Namibia (Germany). See here for more information on land tenure in Burkina Faso.