The 2020 GLTN Partners’ Meeting happens at a vulnerable and critical time in the recent human history. The global pandemic has posed tremendous challenges on governments, even more so in developing countries.

Now, more than ever, collaboration and partnerships among many different sectors and actors are necessary. The work of Global Land Tool Network partners on housing rights, security of tenure and combatting forced evictions can help governments to develop effective policy measures and collaborative solutions in this respect. The main theme of the meeting is “Tenure Security as a key element of COVID-19 response and impact mitigation”. The focus of the meeting will be on strategic decisions and policy directions of the Network, discussions on the implementation of the GLTN programme in the context of COVID-19 pandemic and strengthening partnership and collaboration within the Network.

In line with these focus areas, the specific objectives for the 8th GLTN Partners’ Meeting are:

1. To provide an opportunity to share and discuss experiences, trends and tools related to land tenure security;
2. To reflect on the implementation of the GLTN Phase 3 strategy, cluster priorities and work plan in the context of COVID-19;
3. To fulfil the requirements of the Partners’ Charter regarding the election of cluster leads and the GLTN Steering Committee.

OVERVIEW OF THE PARTNERS’ MEETING WEEK

The current circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic dictate that this will be a fully online meeting and that the agenda will be somewhat curtailed as compared to previous meetings. The event will take place from 1st to 4th December 2020. Pre-events and side events will be organised on 1st December all day and 4th December afternoon. The official opening of the Partners’ meeting will be on 2nd December and closing on 4th December. We believe that a full day programme for each day is not the most conducive to full engagement. Consequently, the programme for each of the four days will only take up part of the day and will consist of different sessions. Plenary sessions and at least a significant proportion of cluster meetings will be held in the early afternoon East African time to provide maximum accessibility to partners and members in all time zones. Side events will be organised and run by partners. We expect to be able to accommodate up to six side events of two hours each, so a priority will be placed on events hosted collectively by multiple partners.

Partners will be expected to organize the content of,  mobilise participation for, facilitate and document their side events. The Secretariat will provide technical assistance in the form of establishing the online forum, sending the links to registered participants and related matters. Partners must submit their interest in hosting side events by 10th November, using a side events submission form circulated by the Secretariat. The GLTN Secretariat, in collaboration with relevant partners, will propose a schedule for the side events that will depend on number of final selected events. The side events schedule is subject to changes until the final programme is available.

The new Steering Committee will meet on Friday 4th December.