This policy brief outlines recommendations resulting from a three-year action research programme undertaken by civil society organizations in collaboration with threatened communities of smallholder farmers and fishers.
This project brings the international soft law instrument, the Voluntary Guidelines on Responsible Governance of the Tenure of Land, Fisheries, and Forests (Tenure Guidelines or TGs) to rural communities and, together with them, uses the Guidelines to strengthen their tenure of land, fisheries and forests. As well, it provides policy-relevant knowledge on how to promote legitimacy and accountability of public authorities involved in land grabs. The goal of the Toolkit is to help users to produce outputs which are politically relevant and useful.
As part of a collaborative project to strengthen the capacity of grassroots communities in Mali, Nigeria, Uganda and South Africa, this practical guide focuses on accountability and accountability politics in the global rush to grab land, water and other natural resources. Through action research, threatened communities can determine causes, conditions, and consequences that will inform collective action and advocacy, in particular by using the CFS/FAO Guidelines on Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests (Tenure Guidelines or TGs).
Undemocratic politics, policy making and law making interpretation and implementation, prove to be drivers of land grabbing in the four country studies presented here. Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (CFS/FAO) Guidelines on Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests (Tenure Guidelines or TGs), albeit “soft” law, are being used by local communities for bottom-up accountability against land grabbing. Land deals are marked by highly contested political processes – usually between the central state, local communities and the corporate sector.
Grassroots organizations do not need to wait for the state to implement Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (Tenure Guidelines or TGs). Rural communities can take governance into their own hands and use TGs as a tool for investigation, reflection and action. The challenge is how to take the next step: under what conditions can TGs provide the rural poor with resources to organize and mobilize?
Drawing on insights from multiple studies, this policy brief addresses the importance of gender considerations for small-scale livestock farming communities relative to food security in the South African context. The brief examines some key elements of gender issues in relation to small-scale livestock farming, asks how some of these elements align with current policies and practices, and suggests a number of focused policy recommendations. Two thirds of the world’s 600 million poor livestock keepers are rural women.
This research reviews legislation and policies in Zimbabwe that have a direct or indirect bearing on the relocation of communities. The current model for large-scale investments has changed from previous models, where the majority of investment projects were undertaken by international companies with limited governmental intervention. While relocation of communities may be inevitable, it is argued that such actions should take into account constitutional provisions, regional and international best practices.
Understanding and interpretation of the CFS/FAO Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests (Tenure Guidelines or TGs) is a key factor in communities’ capabilities for collective action, especially through the organization of land pressure groups. TGs help people to engage critically with existing legal frameworks. In this study, community knowledge was enhanced regarding customary as well as statutory laws which protect rights, while enabling people to identify shortcomings/gaps/bias in the existing laws working against them.
A proposed massive expansion of a petrochemical complex in South Durban’s port area has come under criticism for both economic and environmental violence. The recent history of cities becoming hyperactive export platforms is not merely a function of globalisation. Public policy is a factor, and especially the intellectual project of urban neoliberalism; the strategy was explicit in South Africa’s transition from apartheid to export-oriented neoliberalism.
The objective is to record current living customary law and ways in which it is moving in progressive directions so that this information can be used towards justice, as evidence in court cases, and in policy development and political engagement from local to national levels.
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