In April, the U.N. Committee on Food Security (CFS) released the Zero Draft of the Principles for Responsible Agricultural Investment (RAI) in the Context of Food Security and Nutrition. The release of the RAI Zero Draft marks an important step in the process toward the adoption of a framework that will guide national regulations, international investment agreements, global corporate social responsibility initiatives, and individual investor contracts covering all types of investment in agriculture.

In early December 2012, the Government of the Central African Republic officially launched a land tenure reform process. This process commenced with a multi-stakeholder workshop where two inter-ministerial committees were launched by the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister indicated the government’s intent to lead a public consultation process that results in the formulation of a consolidated vision for land governance, taking into consideration international principals such as the Voluntary Guidelines for the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests.

Last week, the United States hosted the 2012 Intercessional meetings of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS). The KPCS is a voluntary process that diamond producing and diamond buying countries agree to, in order to prevent ‘conflict diamonds’ from entering the market. Ambassador Milovanovic and the State Department serve as the chair for activities this year; however, USAID is playing a role due to the increasing emphasis on development as a critical component to successful implementation of the KPCS.

Guest commentary by Dr. Cynthia M. Caron, Assistant Professor of International Development and Social Change, Clark University.

By Peter Giampaoli, Climate Change Specialist, Land Tenure and Property Rights Division, USAID. Clear, secure rights to manage and use forests are an important aspect of sustaining traditions and economic opportunities. Although this web site often discusses property rights in the context of developing countries, insecure title and undocumented land rights can undermine smallholder ownership in the United States as well.

During the recent “Open for Growth: Trade, Tax and Transparency” event preceding this week’s G8 summit in Northern Ireland, the United States and Guinea announced a partnership focused on supporting transparency in extractive industries. Transparent management of Guinea’s mining sector – which accounts for 95 percent of the country’s exports - is essential for the nation’s long-term economic growth and sustainable development.

ASM-PACE, a partnership between the World Wildlife Fund and Estelle Levin Limited to address the environmental impacts of artisanal and small scale mining (ASM) in some of the world's most important ecosystems, recently featured an excellent blog by Terah de Jong, Chief or Party of USAID’s Property Rights and Artisanal Diamond Development (PRADD) project in the Central African Republic.

Afghanistan has significant amounts of mineral resources according to an assessment completed by the U.S. Geological Survey in 2007. However, according to a recent article by the New York Times “the potential resource boom seems increasingly imperiled by corruption, violence and intrigue.” Control over land and resource rights are increasingly becoming a source of contention, especially as the government begins to make land concessions.

How a little-known U.S. program is helping two African nations meet their KP requirements.
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Girls Not Brides, a global partnership of more than 200 Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) committed to ending child marriage, recently featured an article on how women's land rights can help reduce child marriage. The article describes how USAID’s Kenya Justice project has helped improve girls’ access to education by working with customary justice systems to strengthen women’s land rights in target communities.

USAID’s Land Tenure and Property Rights (LTPR) Division has released a new suite of tools and methodologies created under the recently completed Property Rights and Resource Governance (PRRG) Project. These tools were designed to enhance the understanding of LTPR challenges and improve programming to advance the global development objectives of the United States, including food security, global climate change, conflict mitigation and women’s economic empowerment.

Land tenure in Cote d’Ivoire is closely linked with ethnic conflict, power and economics. Beginning around the 1960s, President Houphouet-Boigny instituted policies that actively encouraged the clearing of new areas of land, the importation of labor and the establishment of laborers as agricultural settlers. This has been the cause of frequent conflicts, relating both to land rights and the ways in which different communities gain access to resources.