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.

On June 14, the United States announced a Partnership with Burkina Faso, in coordination with the G8, to improve land governance and strengthen transparency. The Partnership will build on progress achieved under the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Compact and the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition Country Cooperation Framework with Burkina Faso, which support a number of the principles of the Voluntary Guidelines for the Responsible Governance of the Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security.

U.S. Mission to the UN Agencies in RomeOctober 19, 2011 ROME – The United States government commends the United Nations Committee on Food Security (CFS) for the extraordinary work that it has done on the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Lands, Fisheries and Forests, achieving consensus on approximately seventy percent of the document during the July and October negotiations. The U.S.

The G8’s New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition aims to lift 50 million people out of poverty in ten years through a partnership between G8 members, African nations and the private sector. In order to increase production at a rate needed to achieve food security, the New Alliance seeks to accelerate responsible investment in African agriculture and commit to coordinated policy reforms.

By Dr. Gregory Myers, USAID Division Chief, Land Tenure and Property Rights

USAID is pleased to announce a first-of-its-kind partnership between the Governments of Ethiopia, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Federal Republic of Germany to improve rural land governance. Building on existing programs and the seven land country partnerships announced at this year’s G8 Open for Growth Summit, this new partnership will support greater transparency in rural land governance, promote responsible agricultural investment, and improve Ethiopia’s legal framework and practices related to rural land administration and land use.

According to a new research report from the Enough Project, there is a brief open window for peace to take root in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The DRC conflict, which has lasted for over two decades, has left more than 6 million people dead, displaced countless others within DRC and throughout the region, and has led to trans-boundary regional conflict.

With the endorsement of the Principles for Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Systems (RAI) in October, attention turns to how to reflect the principles and practices outlined in the RAI in foreign assistance and public and private investments. The United States’ global hunger and food security initiative, Feed the Future, already places responsible investment at the core of its programs--including clarifying land rights and maximizing the positive impact of agricultural investments on women, smallholder farmers, and families’ nutritional status.

By Dr. Gregory Myers, USAID Division Chief, Land Tenure and Property Rights On July 30, I had the pleasure of joining Landesa President Tim Hanstad at Global Washington in Seattle for a rich discussion of the Global Farms Race: Implications of Food Security, Poverty, and Foreign Investment. At the heart of this conversation are the rights of communities and individuals to decide for themselves how to use and profit from land. Do they possess clear and documented land and resource rights? Who has the power to make decisions?

This article discusses how one group is contributing to critical thinking about how the Voluntary Guidelines for the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries, and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (VGs) are implemented. The Future Agricultures Consortium (FAC) - an Africa-based alliance of agricultural research organizations - is both tracking implementation of the VGs and launching a study that will, among other things, investigate the multiple pressures toward the commercialization of land and the resulting impacts on land rights in Southern Africa.

Over the past year, USAID has led a global effort in the land and resource governance sector to improve donor coordination and support the Voluntary Guidelines for the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries, and Forests in the Context of National Food Security(Voluntary Guidelines). Working with the Global Donor Working Group on Land, a newly formed group of bi-lateral and multi-lateral donors and development agencies, USAID led a data collection and visualization project that gathered information on land and resource governance programs from around the globe.

Jonathan White, writing for German Marshal Fund, discusses the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition in the context of “Enlightened Capitalism.” Launched in 2012, the New Alliance seeks to lift 50 million people out of poverty in ten years by aligning local country plans, private sector investments, and G8 government commitments behind agriculture and nutrition in Africa. White notes that country ownership and public-private partnerships (PPP) are key to achieving the objectives of the New Alliance.