ILDC has become the biggest and only annual inclusive Land Convergence platform in India and South Asia. Established in 2017, by a collaborative initiative of India and global south land-institution, it promotes inter-sectoral, inter-disciplinary and multi-level conversations on land and development. As a convening, ILDC helps researchers, practitioners, governments, businesses, entrepreneurs and professionals working around and at the interface of land in geographies, across scales, around issues to come together, connect, interact at an open and inclusive platform. It also triggers new intra and inter-sectoral and disciplinary conversations and partnerships around land.
The 5th ILDC was organized in November 2021 online, had more than 1300 participants joining from 70+ countries, over 5 days of deliberation, including pre and post-conference events across 51 thematic sessions, 5 plenary sessions and an academic alliance, with more than 200 speakers from more than 30 countries.
The theme of the sixth edition of ILDC in 2022 is “Global Pulls on Local Lands : Southern Perspectives”. The objective is to further and expand the scope of South-South Exchange around land conversations and cooperations, that began during the last episode, while the focus of the deliberations will continue to be on India.
ILDC2022 seeks to focus on implications of global pulls from instruments like SDGs, Net Zero, Sustainable Food Systems, COVID19 pandemic and Ukraine crisis on land tenure and administration in the global south. It would also explore how the Global soft laws around land viz. Fit for For Purpose (FFP), VGGT, Responsible Investment Guidelines and Technology aided Formalization influence the southern land governance. In addition, the conference would discuss how the land actors in the global south respond to, adopt, resist or negotiate with these global pulls. Across the different tracks, ILDC2022 will deliberate around land tenure issues through the lenses of (de)colonization and market agendas and examine the interactions with customary/ informal land tenure contexts with implications on land rights of poor, indigenous communities, women, forest dwellers, pastoralists, fishers, tenant farmers, slum dwellers in the global south. This year, the conference will focus on South America to expand the Southern perspectives, going across the Atlantic, adding to Asian and African perspectives we were exposed to in ILDC2021.