Land and the New Urban Agenda - Presentation
Dr. Babette Wehrmann, Nairobi, 9 June 2016

Land and the New Urban Agenda: A UN-Habitat wide briefing on 9 June 2016, Nairobi Kenya

The Continuum Of Land Rights Approach To Tenure Security: Consolidating Advances In Theory And Practice

This is the first of a series of consultations on the human rights challenges and dilemmas involved in the
acquisition and use of land – held individually or collectively - for private or state-owned business and
economic purposes. The aim of the series of consultations is to develop a framework that leads to an end of
human rights abuses at any stage of the process – before acquisition, during acquisition, and after operations
have commenced and, if necessary, relocation and rehabilitation arranged, and compensation paid.

This paper examines land tenancy systems and tenant contracts in Rwanda, with
respect to socioeconomic contexts. Our research in southern and eastern Rwanda produced
data suggesting that land borrowing with fixed rents has been generally practiced, and that rent
levels have been low in comparison to expected revenues from field production. In the western
areas of coffee production, however, the practice of sharecropping has recently appeared. This
system is advantageous to landowners, as they are able to acquire half of the harvests; in

Since the early 1990s, parts of Afri-ca’s Great Lakes Region have expe-rienced political strife, armed con-flict and population displacements withsevere humanitarian consequences. De-spite great progress towards sustainablepeace in all the countries of the region,sporadic violence continues in some ar-eas, particularly in the Eastern DemocraticRepublic of Congo (DRC). Conflicts in theGreat Lakes Region are highly interlinked,with political and military alliances, refu-gee movements, and ethnic solidarities ty-ing the fates of the countries of the re-gion.

Since 2009, Oxfam and others have been raising the alarm about a great global land rush. Millions of hectares of land have been acquired by investors to meet rising demand for food and biofuels, or for speculation. This often happens at the expense of those who need the land most and are best placed to protect it: farmers, pastoralists, forest-dependent people, fisherfolk, and indigenous peoples.

 

A new report offers evidence that the modest investments needed to secure land rights for indigenous communities will generate billions in returns—economically, socially and environmentally—for local communities and the world’s changing climate. The report, Climate Benefits, Tenure Costs: The Economic Case for Securing Indigenous Land Rights, quantifies for the first time the economic value of securing land rights for the communities who live in and protect forests, with a focus on Colombia, Brazil, and Bolivia.

With deforestation and other land uses accounting for 11 percent of annual global greenhouse gas emissions, the international community agrees on the need to address deforestation as an important component of climate change. Community forests represent a vital opportunity to curbing climate change that has been undervalued. Today communities have legal or official rights to at least 513 million hectares of forests, only about one eighth of the world’s total, comprising 37.7 billion tonnes of carbon.

Land tenure is one of the great challenges Habitat for Humanity faces in helping families access decent housing. Countless families around the world lack rights to the land on which they live. Just imagine the stress of knowing that any day you might be forced to move because someone else claims ownership of the place you call home.

European and US development funds are bankrolling palm oil company Feronia Inc despite land and labour conflicts at its plantations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). New information now raises questions as to whether the Canadian-based company misused millions of taxpayer dollars destined for international aid by way of companies connected to a high-level DRC politician.

In Burma, where 70 percent of people earn a living through agriculture, securing land is often equivalent to securing a livelihood. But instead of creating conditions for sustainable development, recent Burmese governments have enacted abusive laws, enforced poorly conceived policies, and encouraged corrupt land administration officials that have promoted the displacement of small-scale farmers and rural villagers.