In times of multiple crises, such as conflicts, the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and rising global food prices, the pressure on land resources continues to grow. Safeguarding fair and equal access to land remains essential to food security and food systems transformation. The 10th anniversary of the Voluntary Guidelines on Tenure (VGGT) provides an opportunity to take stock of the guidelines, to evaluate them and discuss their potential as a tool to improve both land governance and food security worldwide.
To this end, Welthungerhilfe, together with the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA) / Land Matrix Initiative (LMI), and International Land Coalition (ILC), and with contributions by TMG Research and Working Group on Peace and Development (FriEnt), co-organized a virtual discussion on November 28th, where international experts and practitioners came together to discuss the impact of the guidelines over the past 10 years, identify gaps and successes in the current context and generate further concrete recommendations for the future.
The invited speakers, Mark Wegerif, on behalf of the VGGT+10 initiative, Jolyne Sanjak, who is responsible for land tenure and property rights at Tera Tech ARD, and Ward Anseeuw, co-founder of the Land Matrix Initiative, shared their perspectives on the impacts of the VGGT in the past 10 years. Interactive working groups discussed approaches for improved utilization of the guidelines, such as multi-stakeholder partnerships, or data for accountability. The groups’ participants also linked the land governance debate to further food systems transformation topics, conflict resolution, and human-rights-based tools. Moderated by Lisa Witter and with further inputs by Martin Hoppe from the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and Yonas Mekonen from the ILC, a lively and focused debate arose. Based on the event, a set of written recommendations was produced.
The recording of the in-person event is now available online here.
The key messages and recommendations from the discussion can be found here.