ILC and Welthungerhilfe: Learning from 10 Years of Implementing the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure
Authors: Marc Wegerif, Mohamed Coulibaly
Published: 2023
Source: International Land Coalition
In May 2012, the Committee on World Food Security adopted the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (VGGT) to promote secure tenure rights and equitable access to land, fisheries and forests with respect to all forms of tenure. Over the past decade, the Guidelines have contributed to creating inclusive processes for policy formulation, giving voice to legitimate tenure rights holders, developing trust and accountability among key stakeholders, in the ownership, management, planning and use of legitimate tenure rights in land, fisheries and forests.
One of the most important challenges of such internationally agreed framework is its domestication and application to country specificities down to local and community levels. Setting up Multi-stakeholder Platforms is a strong recommendation of the Guidelines (Para 26.2) and are found in other normative frameworks governing land tenure at regional, continental or international levels. The aim of these inclusive, participatory, and gender sensitive platforms, established at local, national or regional levels, is to collaborate on making land governance more people centred. The VGGTs provide a common reference framework.
ILC and Welthungerhilfe with support from GIZ celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Guidelines’ endorsement by launching the VGGT+10 Initiative with the goal to take stock and assess to which degree the Guidelines have been used as an orientation for national-level tenure reform processes and as a tool to contribute to tenure security. We also aimed at mobilizing and renewing concrete political commitments and to identifying the next steps for the further application of the Guidelines. Thanks to this Initiative, multi-stakeholder platforms successfully developed and maintained strategic collaboration with their respective Governments on land tenure reform. With continued support from GIZ and other donors, ILC, Welthungerhilfe and other LandCollaborative partners will support these processes to continue, guided and inspired by the VGGTs.
This report is a product of the VGGT+10 Initiative and focuses on the progress made across the 12 participating countries assessed, including good practices, as well as the challenges encountered, lessons learned and the main tenure issues still to be addressed. There has been significant progress in improving policies and legislation on the governance of tenure, with eleven of the twelve countries passing new policies and/or legislation or making major amendments. Many of the improved policies are aligned with the VGGT and support their principles.