On 18 September, ILC was invited to give a Briefing session with IFAD Executive Board during a lunchtime session on Perspectives on current and emerging land governance challenges and ILC's responses. ILC Director Madiodio Niasse described the history and evolution of the ILC, land issues and their relationship to the geopolitics of food and the challenge of securing land rights for the poor.

1. International Land Coalition (ILC)
Perspectives on current and
emerging land governance
challenges and ILC's responses
Briefing session with IFAD Executive Board - 18 September 2013

2. I. International Land Coalition

3. ILC - Who are we? Where are we coming from?
1995: Conference organised by IFAD on
Hunger and Poverty : The Popular Coalition to
Eradicate Hunger and Poverty
Empowering the rural poor by
increasing their access to
productive resources assets (esp.
land, water)
Enhancing knowledge sharing
about best practices for fighting
humger/poverty;
Building public awareness and opening
space for policy reform and CSO
engagement
Specific emphasis: Need for "Revival of land and
agrarian reform" on the national and international
agenda :

4. ILC - Who are we? Where are we coming from?
1998
1995
2003
ILC
AoM
Secret
ariat
PCHP
2005
2009
2007
AoM
AoM
AoM
S. Cruz
Rome
2011
Entebbe
2013
AoM
AoM
Tirana
Kathma
ndu
Antigua
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
Evolution of ILC membership
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013

5. A globally diverse membership

6. ILC - What brings us together?
150 MEMBER ORGANISATIONS, INCLUDING:
10 IGOs (FAO, IFAD, WB, UNCCD, UNEP, WFP, IFPRI, IWMI, ILRI, ICRAF)
100 Southern-based FOs (AFA, FUNDAPAZ, EAFF) and CSOs (ANGOC, CEPES, LN-WA)
40 global and Northern-based CSOs (Oxfam, SNV, WRI, LANDESA, CIRAD, IIED)
In addition: 5 Strategic Partners (MFA-Netherlands, SDC-Switzerland, EC, SidaSweden, AU-LPI)
WHO? A global
alliance of civil
society and
intergovernment
al organisations
WHAT PURPOSE?
Promote secure &
equitable access
to and control
over land for poor
women and men
HOW DO WE WORK?:
• advocacy
• dialogue
• knowledge sharing
• capacity building
and empowerment.
Goal of ILC 2011-2015 : To enable poor rural women & men to gain
secure and equitable access to and control over land in order to
increase their food security and overcome poverty & vulnerability

7. THE RURAL POOR MEN AND WOMEN - A LARGE DIVERSITY

8. II. Land in the emerging
geopolitics of food

9. Understanding the current context
Food Self-sufficiency
paradigm
Food Security
paradigm
Global food production
Food price index
?

10. 2010-2020 : A turning point for land (& water)
governance?
400
global cereal production
global freshwater withdrawal
350
global extension of irrigated land
baseline = 1960 = 100
Relative growth
global extension of cultivated land
300
250
200
150
100
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2010
2020
2030
sources: UNESA 2013, FAOSTAT 2013, FAO 2011, HLPE 2012, MEA 2005, Rockstrom et al 2009
2040
2050

11. Elements of the new geopolitics
Expanding demand for
land for food:
• Rapid population
growth
• Nutrition transition
• Energy and climate
mitigation demand for
land/water
Constraints to expanding food
supplies:
• Climate change and variability
• Reduced yield gaps
• Closing land and water frontiers
in traditionally high performing
grain producing regions, etc.
• Japan Syndrome
Structural dimensions of current/emerging food security problems:
• Land and water -- reaching the resource limits (planetary boundaries)
• Japan syndrome: A densely populated fast-growing and industrialising
countries, experiences the shrinking of its grainland, translating into
increased dependency on imports (Bown, 2004).
• Syndrome was experienced by Japan, South Korean, Taiwan

12. 5, 3 M ha (17
M agr))
3, 6 M ha (4.5 M
agr)
- 32% since
1960s
The Japan Syndrome (Shimizu, 2011)
-20% since
1980s)
3000
Area x 1000 hecatres
2000
Arable land x1000 hectares
-50% since
1970s)
2500
1500
1000
500
0
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2004
Trends in arable land in South Korea (Honma & Hayami. 2007)
1000
900
800
700
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
2004
Trends in arable land in Taiwan (Honma & Hayami. 2007)
China and India : Threats of the Japan syndrome and implications for
global food security

13. What solutions for the future? Centrality of land
A. Avoiding the Japan Syndrome:
China:
 Loss of arable land: 8.2 million of arable land between 1997 and 2010 (Hofman & Ho, 2012)
 Loss of food self-sufficiency: Net food importer from 2004
 bottom-line of 120 million hectares of arable land that need to be safeguarded
India:
 Industralisation (SEZs), infrastructure, urbanisation => Risk to food-self-sufficiency
 Sanctuarisation" of the grainland: Possibility to "classify" the remaining arable land
to prevent its conversion to other uses
B. Increasing productivity of existing arable land (1.5 billion ha)
 Closing the yield gap
 Breaking the yield frontier
C. Expanding the arable land:
 Approach based on perception that there is a substantial amount of unused and
underused land that is suitable for agriculture (Deininger, 2011)
o Estimate: 445 million ha (equivalent of 30% of existing arable land)
o Mainly (3/4th) in LA (28% : 123,000,000 ha) and in Africa (45%: 200 million
ha): ==> Africa's savannah region: "Sleeping Giant" of 400 million ha of
"unused/underused" land (WB, 2009)

14. III. Securing land rights for the
poor - a bigger challenge

15. Importance and challenge of securing land rights for the poor
Lack of investment in
agricultural modernisation
Severe land degradation
Poverty - hunger
Lack of investment
in water control
infrastructure
A generation gap: loss of farmer pride; youth
outmigration
How representative of Africa's 33 million smallholder farms (that
produce 90% of food consumed in the continent)?

16. Keeping track of large-scale transnational land deals
Marked spatial disconnect between:
o Regions/countries w/ highest future food demand is anticipated: South/SE Asia:
China, India
o Regions/Countries with the financial capital / tech know-how to develop
land/water:Global North, emerging economies, oil-rich countries
o Regions w/ highest land & water potential food production : Africa & L-America
Key features
• Escalation following food and energy price crises of 2008/9
• Drivers: Both food, energy security and profit
• No single predominant investor type: Top ten countries of origin include both emerging and
developed economies
• A large proportion small-scale landgrabbing within countries, but often unnoticed.
• Lack of transparency
ILC response:
Key assumption: Greater transparency allows wider involvement of stakeholders in
decision-making, and enables better decision-making on trade-offs
• Facilitating greater citizen involvement in promoting transparency in land and investment
• National multi-stakeholder pilots, bringing together government with civil society
• Global Observatory of the Land Matrix a tool that allows wide participation in decisionmaking, based on publicly available information
• www.landmatrix.org

17. Addressing need for gender equality in land access
The issues
• Glaring gender inequalities in land access, while context of increased feminisation of
agriculture
• Rationale for correcting gender inequality is primarily a rights issue: women and men need
to be treated equally in resource access
• Economic/efficiency rationale: It helps improve agricultural productivity: If given the same
level of access and tenure to land than men women would increase yields on their farms by
20-30%, with spill over effects on poverty reduction efforts
ILC response:
• Awareness raising, information generation and sharing
• Monitoring the status of women's land rights and
fulfilment of claims (e.g. CEDAW shadow reporting)
• Contributing to enabling environments:
o at national level : selected focus countries
o in regional and international forums (e.g. CSW)
and land-related policy processes (VGGT
operationalisation)

18. Highlights on other areas of relevance
Securing rangelands
Indigenous peoples' land and
territorial rights
Virtual platform for
knowledge/experience sharing
Land rights defenders

19. Land increasingly recognised as an essential element of sustainable
development, peace and stability
President Otto Perez Molina at ILC
AoM - 2013 Antigua
•
Prime Minister Sali Berisha at ILC
AoM - 2011 Tirana
Voting on Food Sovereignty
at the Assembly of Members
Prime Minister Pushpa
Kamal Dahal at ILC AoM 2009 Kathmandu

20. A unique multi-stakeholder and multi-perspectives platform

21. Thank you!