The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) launched on Tuesday widespread consultations over the first ever international guidelines on governance of tenure to land and other natural resources such as water supplies, fisheries and forests.
According to the Rome-based agency, the consultations and negotiations, responding to
requests from the international community and the governments, will take more than a year to complete.
They will involve governments, the private sector, poor farmers, indigenous groups, local
authorities and experts and will be led by a secretariat based at FAO headquarters.
"Secure access to land is seen as a key condition to improving food security of some of the world's poorest people," said Paul Munro-Faure, chief of the land tenure and management unit of the FAO.
"FAO is taking the lead in this exercise because secure land access is the best safety-net for the poor", he added.
The main problem is that land laws are often ignored or badly enforced, said the FAO. It is
therefore essential to strengthen legislature aimed at protecting farmers and forest dwellers, as well as domestic and foreign investors, from being thrown off their land or having their land
seized.
Land is a precious and rare resource in these days of rising hunger, shrinking access to food and soaring world population. Securing its access for all social groups is a tough challenge.
"Competition for land and other natural resources is increasing due to population and
economic growth, direct foreign investment for large scale food production, demands for bio-
fuels and urban and industrial expansion," said Alexander Muller, assistant director-general of
FAO's natural resources department.
"A shrinking natural resource base increases competition as land is abandoned because of degradation, climate change and violent conflicts," he explained.
"Without responsible governance, growing demands for land threatens to foster social
exclusion as the rich and powerful are able to acquire land and other natural resources at the
expense of the poor and vulnerable," he added.
The most vulnerable ones are women, the disabled, illiterate and elderly whose land is
frequently seized as they often lack legal and social rights.
For the FAO, there is thus a growing and widespread interest in an international instrument to improve governance of tenure of land and other natural resources, through the identification of practical guidelines to states, civil society and the private sector.