A National Level Consultation meeting on draft National Land Policy conducted on August 8, 2016. The national level consultation meeting was jointly organized by Strengthening Access to Land Equality for All Citizens of Bangladesh Project and Sustainable Access to Land Equality Project. With the leadership of Ministry of Land, Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh along with 12 relevant ministries has been working in the technical committee for drafting the policy.

Uttaran in partnership with Manusher Jonno Foundation and CARE has been implementing SALE (Sustainable Access to Land Equality) project funded by European union in three upazilas of Bangladesh. The development goal of this project is to strengthen access to land and property rights for all citizens, especially the poorest segments. Mainly, the project intends to promotion of effective, transparent and accountable land governance practices towards access to equitable land and property rights for the poorest community.

The Jamalpur district administration has decided to prepare an online database of the real landless and homeless in Jamalpur Sadar Upazila. Forming the selection committees at Union and Ward level is an effective step to make the list of real landless and homeless people. This will make the identification process of the actual landless, poor and vulnerable people easy, acceptable to all and impartial. I hope that once the list is finalised, it will be useful in selecting beneficiaries for the various safety net and development programmes of the present government.

Uttaran is implementing a project titled, Sustainable Access to Land Equality-SALE' with support of European Union. SALE is the civil society component of overall access to land project that is lead by Department of Land Records and Surveys (DLRS) and Ministry of Land in Bangladesh. SALE partners are taking the main responsibility of the public awareness of vulnerable land owners, capacity support to make the vulnerable land owners sensitive land administration, to pilot transparent landless people selection and state land settlement to landless people.

Uttaran is the pioneer leading national non-government to promote rights for landless people of Bangladesh since 1985. As part of its activities under land less people and state land settlement, it has already piloted the participatory land less selection process and state land identification. The process has been accelerated with number of communication materials such as posters, leaflets and brochures. This poster has described the discrimination between men and women during state land allocation and also promote advocacy agenda with government.

The acquisition of land by foreigners in developing countries has emerged as a key mechanism for foreign direct investment (FDI). FDI is defined by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) as the category of international investment that reflects the objective of a resident entity in one economy to obtain a lasting interest in an enterprise resident in another economy.

According to 2001 statistics, 924 million people, almost one third of the world’s population lived in slums. A majority of these people are in the developing countries and they account for 43% of the urban population. Slums are characterized by a dense proliferation of small, makeshift shelters built from diverse materials, degradation of the local ecosystem and by severe social problems.

Land plays a vital and central role in the economic, social-cultural and political lives of both individuals and communities. Given its centrality in the socio-economic and political spheres, national goals such as economic development, poverty reduction, social and political stability are closely linked to land. Land provides the livelihood base for the bulk of the population especially in the rural areas where agriculture is the main occupation. Despite their importance, land and environment in Kenya have suffered decades of mismanagement that has led to the current state of degradation.

Kenya is currently implementing a number of large scale infrastructure and development projects aimed at trans forming the country into a newly industrializing, middle-income country. For this, the government has had to compulsorily acquire large tracts of land upon which the infrastructure is set.

The Land Act, 2012

The Land Registration Act, 2012

The National Land Commission Act, 2012

The Environment & Land Court Act, 2011

The Urban Areas & Cities Act, 2011

THE COMMUNITY LAND ACT No. 27 of 2016

Date of Assent: 3lst August,2016

Date of Commencement : 2 I st September, 201 6

A Bill for AN ACT of Parliament to consolidate the laws relating to energy, to provide for National and County Government functions in relation to energy,to provide for the establishment, powers and functions of the energy sector entities; promotion of renewable energy; exploration, recovery and commercial utilization of geothermal energy; regulation of midstream and downstream petroleum and coal activities; regulation, production, supply and use of electricity and other energy forms; and for connected purposes.