Agricultural policies need to address gender inequalities to ensure effective development interventions that can achieve positive and sustainable results in the lives of rural women, men, girls and boys. One powerful instrument for promoting the realization of the rights and potential of rural women and girls is the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

Oxfam International

Food First & Transnational Institute

In the face of violent dispossession and incorporation into an exploitative labor regime, indigenous peasant families in northern Guatemala are struggling to access land and defend their resources as the basis of their collective identity as Q'eqchi' peoples or R'al Ch'och ("sons and daughters of the earth"). This brief is the first in the Land & Sovereignty in the Americas series, co-published by Food First and the Transnational Institute.

This Law sets forth the principles and procedures of valuation of areas taken out of forest area borders on behalf of the Treasury and vending of agriculture lands owned by the Treasury. The Law also sets out the principles and procedures of creation of new forest areas, replacement of forest villagers and supporting the development of replaced forest villages. The provisions of this Law covers only areas taken out of forest area borders in accordance with Article. 2 of the Law No. 6831 and covers the agriculture lands owned by the Treasury.

European Coordination Via Campesina and Hands Off the Land Network

This Regional Law establishes legal grounds for land reclamation activity with the consideration of natural and climatic conditions, and also rights and duties of natural and legal persons ensuring efficient tenure and protection of reclaimed land. The scope of land reclamation shall be to ensure improvement of soil fertility and creation of condition for involvement agricultural production of unused and low-productive land. Land reclamation shall be classified as follows: (a) hydrotechnical amelioration; (b) agro-forestry; (c) land clearing; and (d) chemical amelioration.

"In the absence of an easily available source of reliable up-to-date data on foreign land deals in Tanzania, many reports have been published that attempt to provide an overview of these deals. While providing this overview is challenging due to the dynamic and non-transparent nature of the 'land grab' phenomenon itself, it has become even more debatable due to certain questionable methods of using and quoting existing data. This leads to several flaws including the ‘virtual survival’ of cancelled land deals ‘on paper’.

The "Bread for All-Protestant Development Service" recently released a document based on three case studies on the palm oil sector in Liberia.

These Norms approve the Legal and Fiscal Regime for Land Occupation and regulate the requests of concessions for unoccupied and uncultivated lands to be used for: agro-forestry/silvo-pastoralism, agricultural, livestock, or other purposes.

Please find links below to a recent Human Rights Watch report and video on the human rights impacts of coal mining in Mozambique. Our report shows that almost 60% of Tete province, site of large coal reserves, has been allocated for approved or proposed mining licenses. The report examines how serious shortcomings in government policy and mining companies’ (Vale, Riversdale, Rio Tinto) implementation uprooted largely self-sufficient farming communities and resettled them to arid land far from rivers and markets. 

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This document gives a brief overview of CEDAW and, in particular, those articles that relate to rural women (especially Article 14). It then continues on to discuss how different organizations can use CEDAW for gender-sensitive program and policy formulation. It also gives some example case study “success stories” within different countries, as well as some further resources.

The High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition (HLPE) was established in 2010 as the science-policy interface of the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS). The HLPE aims to improve the robustness of policy making by providing independent, evidence-based analysis and advice at the request of CFS.