Land Policy 1

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Published: ransnational Institute and 11.11.11

Author: Soa Monsalve Surez

Series editors: Jun Borras, Jennier Franco, Soa Monsalve and Armin Paasch

Copy editors: Jessica Penner and Oscar Reyes

Design: Ricardo Santos

Cover photo: Kate Mereand - www.ickr.com/photos/katmere

ISBN: 978-90-71007-26-2

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Acknowledgements: I would like to thank Maria Isabel Castro Velasco, Amaranta Melchor

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Amsterdam, September 2008


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The FAO and its work on land policy and agrarian reormBy Soa Monsalve Surez

Table o Contents

1. Historical Introduction 5

2. The current work o the FAO 13

3. The FAOs current land and agrarian reorm policies 20

3.1 Normative Programme 20

3.2 Technical Assistance Programme 26

3.3 Multilateral Exchange Forum 344. Critical reections on the implementation o the FAOs land policies

and its overall perormance in this eld 385. Conclusions 45

Bibliography 46

Appendix I 50

About the Land

Policy Series 54


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| The FAO and its work on land policy and agrarian reorm4


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The FAO and its work on land policy and agrarian reorm | 5

1. Historical introduction

Te United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) was ounded on

16 October 1945 in Qubec (Canada), based on an agreement initially reached

by the governments o the 44 countries. Te central objective o the ounding

governments was to eradicate hunger; this is still the aim o the 190 countries that

currently make up the organisation. o meet this goal, the FAO oers services to

developed and developing countries. It also plays a role as a neutral orum in which

agreements are negotiated, and the policies o the various governments are debated.

Te FAO member countries meet periodically, once every two years, to discuss the

organisations activities, the budget, and other issues. For the years 2006 and 2007,

the members o the FAO assigned $767.5 million to cover the organisations costs at

a global level.

An analysis o the evolution o the FAOs activities as a global organisation over

the years reveals how contextual changes have, as is to be expected, inuenced the

work done by the FAO. I we begin with the ounding o the organisation and its

rst years o operation, immediately ollowing the Second World War, its work was

primarily ocussed on providing ood to the undernourished in Europe and Japan,and on reconstruction in those regions o Europe directly aected by the Second

World War.

Te 1960s presented new challenges or the FAO, as those countries still subject to

colonial rule gained independence. Te FAO supported the edgling states, oering

nancial and technical assistance to acilitate the creation o the necessary institutions

and inrastructures. With the birth o these diverse new states, the FAO and the UN

system in general experienced rapid growth throughout the decade. Tis quantitative

development can be clearly perceived in the creation o new entities within the UNramework. Several o these are o considerable interest to a study o the progress o

the FAO, including the World Food Programme (WFP) ounded in 1963, the United

Nations Development Programme (UNDP) ounded in 1965 and the International

Fund or Agricultural Development (IFAD) in 1977, among others.

Viewed rom an historical perspective, FAO activities around land policy and agrarian

reorm can be divided into the ollowing periods, as dened by Akram-Lodhi, Borras

and Kay (2007): the post-war period until the end o the 1970s; the transition period o

the 1980s; and the period beginning in the 1990s and continuing to the present day.


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Te rst period, rom 1945 to the end o the 1970s was the most intense, in terms o the

scale and variety o activity related to land policy and agrarian reorm, in the world in

general, and in the FAO in particular. Te 1945 FAO Conerence1 highlighted the need

or agrarian reorm as a means to economic and social progress, and bringing an endto land tenancy systems characterised by inadequate distribution o land, large terrains

being put to little agricultural use, exploitation o labourers and extensive rural poverty.

Issues such as the study o land tenancy systems, development and conservation o soil

ertility, and statistics about land tenancy were identied as relevant to the work o

the FAO (FAO, 1945). In 1947, there was a branch within the Agriculture Division

dedicated to land use. Tis branch later became the Water and Land Development

Division o the Agriculture Department. Te rst years o this Divisions work were

ocussed on collecting data, exchanging inormation and advising governments. Later,

its operative eldwork capacity increased. By 1968, it was responsible or a third o the

FAOs eld programmes (Phillips, 1981). Te Rural Welare Division was also created

in 1947 and was to pass through a number o organisational transormations over

the years (Rural Institutions and Services Division, Human Resources, Institutions

and Agrarian Reorm Division, Rural Development Division). Tis division also dealt

with issues o land tenancy, settlements, rural institutions, agrarian reorm, education

and extension services, credit, co-operatives, rural sociology, etc. One o the principle

objectives o this division has been the inclusion o the more marginalised rural groups

in development, training them to participate in the processes and decisions that aectthem. Its activities have been characterised by the use o a concept o integral rural

development, dealing with dierent institutional, social and structural aspects.

In terms o the policy approach promoted by the FAO in land policy and agrarian

reorm throughout this period, probably the most characteristic document is the UN/

FAO study, produced at the request o the UN General Assembly and published in

1951. Te principal aim o the study was to identiy the deects in agrarian structures

that were obstructing economic development in ood production (UN, 1951). Te

deects identied included the economically inappropriate size o estates (in the ormo small holdings or vast estates) in many parts o the world; the concentration o

land ownership in vast estates which did not allow the occupants or agricultural

labourers to make a living rom their work; the insecurity o land tenure, including

the land tenure o tenants, because o the lack o appropriate provisions about titling;

inadequate provision o agricultural credit and exorbitantly high interest rates;

and inadequate scal systems. Among the measures recommended to overcome

these obstacles, the report highlights the context in which certain reorms may be

1 Te FAO conerence, which meets every two years, is the organisations supreme governing body and deliberativespace.


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introduced without having to aect the socio-economic structures o a society. Tese

might include the consolidation o very ragmented orms o land tenancy (small

holdings), the registration o land and water rights, the provision o long-term credit

at reasonable rates o interest, the airest and least onerous scal reorms, and thereinorcing o rural education and advisory systems. In other contexts, where social

and economic problems were more pressing, the reorms would have to be more

proound. In general, this meant the redistribution o land rom large landowners to

armers. Te hope was expressed that agrarian reorms that alter income distribution

and increase agricultural production would permit industrial expansion by generating

consumer capacity and creating their own market. In this sense, the reorm o deective

agricultural structures becomes key to economic and social progress.

Based on this study and the resolution issued by the UN Economic and Social Council

in its 13th session, in which it calls on the FAO to take a leading role on the issue o

land reorm, the 1951 FAO Conerence took the challenge, called attention to the act

that reorm o agrarian structures is not only crucial to economic development, but

also or reedom and human dignity, and urged the Member States to reorm their

agrarian structures. Te measures the Conerence resolved to take included:

Increasing available inormation about land tenancy and related topics

with the aim o analysing this inormation and making this analysisavailable to Member States.

Revising the FAOs work programme to give greater priority and

integrated ocus to all projects in the dierent divisions related to

agrarian structural reorm.

echnically advising countries prepared to make reorms, including

land tenancy, agricultural credit, agricultural cooperatives, extension

services and rural industries.

Promoting the use o Expanded echnical Assistance Programmes or

the ends o agrarian reorm.

Creating regional centres or training and exchange about land

problems (Brazil, Tailand and Iraq).

Seeking cooperation with other international organisations including

the International Bank or Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) to


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deal with issues related to the internal and external nancing o agrarian

reorms.

Tis intense level o activity within the FAO continued throughout this period.Among the main initiatives were the Working Group ormed in 1953 on methods

or the consolidation o small holdings, the comparative studies o land tenancy

systems between 1962 and 1963, the World Conerence on Agrarian Reorm in

1966 jointly organised with the International Labour Organisation (ILO), and the

Special Committee on Agrarian Reorm created in 1969. In 1963 the rst issue o the

publication Land Reorm, Land Settlement and Cooperatives was produced, with M.R.

El-Ghonemy among its co-ounders. Tis journal continues to be one o the most

outstanding publications on the topic worldwide.

In terms o emphasis, it could be said that the UN/FAO study o deective agrarian

structures emphasises the economic rather than the socio-political justication or

agrarian reorms. One might even go so ar as to consider them more in line with reorms

within a capitalist ramework (Japan, Republic o Korea, aiwan, the Latin American

reorms within the Alliance or Progress). It is interesting to observe that the directors

o the Land and Water Development Division all came rom the United States between

1947 and 1965, and the directors o the Human Resources, Institutions and Agrarian

Reorm Division were almost all o Anglo-Saxon origins, rom the US, New Zealand,the UK, Canada, India and Denmark, between 1947 and 1972 (Phillips, 1981). In

general terms, the United States had an overriding political inuence during the rst

decades whereas the Soviet Union was absent in building the organisation (Marchisio

and Di Blase, 1991).2 China, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary suspended their

membership in the early 1950s and rejoined between the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Unortunately, the author could not access documentation about the eld projects and

consultancy provided by the FAO during these years. Nevertheless, FAO publications

seem to indicate that they supported dierent kinds o agrarian reorms, that is to

say, also those reorms carried out within socialist rameworks (Bulgaria, Hungary,Romania, Peoples Democratic Republic o Korea, Lao Peoples Democratic Republic,

Vietnam, Cuba, Ethiopia) and/or the reorms whose socio-political motivations come

either rom processes o independence rom colonial rule (Mozambique, Ivory Coast,

Mali, Senegal, Zaire), or peasant revolutions (Bolivia, Mexico) (Cox et. al., 2003).

As explained in detail by Marchisio and Di Blase (1991), in the rst decades, the role o

the FAO was dened by the member states as international co-ordination o independent

2 Te Soviet Union was never a member o the FAO, although they attended the ounding conerence in Quebec(Phillips, 1981).


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national actions ollowing a quasi-normative (non-binding recommendations)

strategy. In line with this understanding, since 1949 it was stipulated that technical

assistance was only to be provided with the agreement o the government concerned

and that the nature o the assistance was to be dened by the government requestingsuch services and should not be a pretext or economic or political intererence in

domestic aairs. Marchisio and Di Blase state that or agrarian reorm this meant

that the FAO concentrated its activities on areas that were unlikely to be contested

by member states (or example, agro-technical practical advice, technical assistance,

and training and dissemination o know-how) given the act that agrarian reorm is a

highly politicised issue under individual government jurisdiction (1991: 36).

Without a doubt, the culmination o all the FAOs initiatives and eorts in the 1960s and

1970s was the World Conerence on Agrarian Reorm and Rural Development (WCARRD)

held in Rome in July 1979. In the words o the Director General o the FAO at that time,

Edouard Sauoma, the FAO hoped that the conerence and its plan o action would become

a point o inection in the history o humanity and the ght against poverty (FAO, 1981).

Te conerences Declaration o Principles mentioned, among others:

Te principles o human dignity, social justice and international

solidarity;

Individual and social improvement, the development o endogenous

capacities and increased quality o lie, particularly or the poorest

people, as the undamental aims o development;

Te right o each state to exercise complete and permanent sovereignty

over its natural resources and economic activities;

Te use o oreign investment o transnational corporations, or

agricultural development o developing countries in accordance withnational needs and priorities;

Te need to redistribute political and economic power, completely

integrate rural areas into national development eorts, expand the rural

populations possibilities or employment and income and encourage

the development o peasant associations, co-operatives and other orms

o autonomous and democratic organisation o primary producers and

rural workers in order to achieve national progress based on growth with

equality and participation;


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Te duty to make the utmost eort to mobilise and eectively use

internal resources or rural development;

Respect or ecological balance and environmental conservation inthe air distribution and ecient use o land, water and other natural

resources.

Tat the policies and programmes eecting rural and agrarian systems

should be ormulated and implemented with the clear understanding and

the complete participation o the entire rural population, including the

youth, and their organisations at all levels; and that eorts at development

should respond to the diverse needs o dierent rural groups;

Tat women should participate and contribute on an equal ooting with

men in the social, economic and political processes o rural development,

as well as ully share in the improvements in living conditions in the

rural environment;

Constant vigilance must be maintained to ensure that the benets

o agrarian reorm and rural development are not neutralised by the

rearmation o old orms o concentration o resources in private hands,or by the appearance o new orms o inequality;

Reinorcing international cooperation and the increased ow o

nancial and technical resources or rural development.

In general terms, the declaration o principles and the WCARRDs programme or

action, known as the Peasant Charter, treat rural development as a global problem that

should be simultaneously tackled on dierent, interrelated ronts: the actions o rural

institutions at a local level, the reorientation o national development policies, and theestablishment o a New International Economic Order across the world (FAO, 1981).

Te Peasant Charter is dierent rom the UN/FAO study o 1951 in that it gives more

space and relevance to the socio-political justications or agrarian reorm, going so ar

as to argue or these kinds o reorms on an international level, as they were discussed

in the 1970s within the ramework o the non-aligned countries in the United Nations

Conerence on rade and Development, searching or alternatives to the Bretton

Woods system and conditions o trade and nance or airer and more just development

or the countries o the South, which had recently become independent o European


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countries (Bhagwati, 1977). As Marchisio and Di Blase (1991) outline, WCARRD was

part o a major attempt to re-organise and re-orient the FAO in line with the demands

o developing countries rom a cooperation-approach based on supplying countries

in the South with advanced technology, machinery, ertilisers and pesticides towardslong-term criteria and structural socio-political changes concerning the elimination

o ood dependence, resource conservation and the participation o rural masses in

development. Finally, it is noteworthy that the Peasant Charter was adopted by the UN

General Assembly in 1979.

TheTransiTionperiodofThe 1980s

Te 1980s began or the FAO with the impetus o wanting to implement the Peasant

Charter. For the rst ve years, the FAO aimed at collecting $20 million o extra

budget resources through voluntary contributions, as well as revising its work plan

in accordance with the priorities established in the Peasant Charter and mobilising

existing personnel and resources to support the Charters implementation (FAO,

1979). Within the ramework o the WCARRD, the FAO supported 25 high-level

inter-agency missions or the ormulation o agrarian reorm and rural development

policies. Te FAO also promoted meetings and consultations, and provided technical

assistance (Cox et. al., 2003). Nonetheless, the our reports prepared by the FAO on

the progress made in the application o the WCARRD plan o action in the member

states show that the advances were minimal and a rise was even registered in the totalnumber o rural poor in the period 1980-87 (FAO, 1991). Tere was also a notable all

in the number o publications produced by the FAO in the period 1980-89, compared

with the preceding period 1970-79: rom 286 to 176 (Herrera et. al., 1997). Te paradox

o the 1980s or the FAO is that the Peasant Charter arrived just when international

conditions had begun to change in ways that sidelined the issue o agrarian reorm.

Among these conditions were the external debt crisis that began in 1982 and brought

with it the politics o structural adjustment, imposing massive limits on public

spending on many developing countries; the general crisis in agriculture, and the

politics o agrarian reorm in particular in the sense that they were not giving theexpected results, in either capitalist or socialist contexts; the Green Revolution and its

technological advances which suggested that the problem o hunger and rural poverty

could be resolved through technological innovation; the ebb o peasant struggles and

national liberation movements; and nally, the end o the Cold War and the all o

the Berlin Wall at the end o the decade (Akram Lodhi et. al., 2007). Tese conditions

also meant that the UN development agencies lost resources and inuence in the

Bretton Woods institutions and regional development banks that came to assume the

unctions o development agencies. Tis loss o inuence and resources particularly

aected the FAO (FAO 2007b: para. 184-203).


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fromThe 1990sToThepresenTday

Te reorientation o the FAOs policies can be traced to the World Food Summit (WFS),

held in Rome in 1996. Although agrarian reorm is mentioned in its action plan as one o

the principal policies or combating poverty and ood insecurity, the document showsevidence o and acceptance o the neoliberal critique o state-led agrarian reorm, by

emphasising legal reorms to the judicial ramework or reinorcing property rights as

a way o stimulating investment (Binswanger and Deininger, 1999).3 Te Action Plan

also conrmed the agenda o liberalising agricultural trade within the ramework o

the World rade Organisation (WO) and a ood security strategy based on trade, as

expressed in the ourth commitment o the Action Plan (FAO, 1996a).

In 1997, the FAO decided to abandon the mechanism o producing specic and

periodic progress reports on the implementation o the Peasant Charter, and resolved

instead to include reports on this in the reports submitted on the WFS Action Plan

(FAO, 1997).

Perhaps the most explicit document demonstrating this reorientation o the FAOs

policies are the articles published by members o the Land enure Division in 1997 and

2000 (Herrera et. al., 1997; Ridell, 2000). In these articles the authors list the ailings o

past state-led agrarian reorms, they highlight the ailure to bring an end to poverty,

the inability o subsidised extension services to benet the beneciaries o agrarianreorm, the high costs o the regularisation and distribution o land, the inability to

guarantee security o land tenure, owing to the absence, or inadequate unctioning o

registry oces and registers, among other things. Faced with the ailure o the statist

approaches, the FAO sees many o its member countries in the process o redening

the role o the state in the new political and economic conditions created by structural

adjustment reorms. Te FAO member states sought the support o the FAO in the

application o market-based land policies, or example reinorcing land markets and

distributing lands via the market, as was the case in Columbia in 1994 (Ibid). Faced

with these proound changes, the FAO in these articles, visualises its role in landpolitics and agrarian reorm as contributing to the reorm o public institutions and the

creation o private institutions, with a view o promoting competition and removing

the obstacles to investment in land; improving land valuation and taxation systems;

reorming and modernising cadastral and registration systems; modernising and

3 Objective 1.2b o the Action Plan says, or example: Establish legal and other kinds o mechanisms, as appropriate,that allow advances in land reorm, recognise and protect rights to property and the use and usuruct o water, in orderto improve access or poor people and women to resources. Such mechanisms should also promote the conservationand sustainable use o natural resources (such as land, water and orests), reduce risk and stimulate investment (FAO,1996a).


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improving systems o collecting and processing geo-spatial inormation; guaranteeing

the necessary legislation or these policies; analysing in depth the unction o the land

and land rent markets.

A more detailed analysis o the policies currently being applied by the FAO is presented

in the next section.

2. The current work o the FAO

principalmoTivaTions

Based on international commitments created through the WFS and the Environment

Summit in Rio, in 1999 the FAO adopted a strategic ramework to guide its action

or the period 2000-2015 (FAO, 1999). Tis document identies three principle

and interrelated goals: contribute to the reduction o hunger; attaining sustainable

agriculture and rural development; and the conservation, improvement andsustainable use o natural resources in order to guarantee ood and agriculture. Te

question o land is intimately related to these three goals, and it is rom them that

the justication and the mandate o the FAO to work in this eld are derived. It is

interesting to observe that the FAOs ocial motivations or working on land issues

present surprising continuity rom its ounding to the present day. Te changes that

have taken place are to be observed, above all, in the ocuses and contexts deemed

necessary or meeting these goals.

As well as outlining the principle goals, the strategic ramework analyses the currentcontext in which the FAO must act. It is described in the ollowing way:

Greater emphasis on the principal unction o the State being the

provision o a normative and regulatory ramework that avours

sustainable development

Continuation o the globalisation and liberalisation o trade, including

the trade o agriculture and ood


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Growth in the number o countries in the middle-income group and

greater importance given to regional and sub regional groupings

Persistence o poverty and growing inequality: an increasing gapbetween rich and poor

Te continued risk o complex emergencies related to catastrophes

New demands on agriculture, shing and orestry in increasingly

urbanised societies

Changes in eating habits and growing pubic awareness o ood and

environmental issues (saety and quality o ood)

Growing pressure on natural resources and competition or their use

Constant progress in technological research and development and

persistent inequality in terms o access to its benets

Growing impact o inormation and communication technologies on

institutions and societies

Changes in the nature and composition o unds or agricultural

development

Changes in the unction and public perception o the United Nations

system

In response to this contextual analysis, the strategic ramework ormulates the

principle strategies that will guide the FAOs work. Land policies are relevant to threeo these strategies:

Contribute to the eradication o ood insecurity and rural poverty,

promoting the means o sustainable subsistence in rural areas and airer

access to resources. Within this ramework, the FAO will support eorts

to reinorce local institutions and promote policies and legislation that

aim or airer access or both women and men to natural resources

(particularly land, water, shing and orestry) and to the relevant

economic and social resources.


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Promoting, producing and reinorcing regulatory rameworks and

policies or ood, agriculture, shing and orestry. Te FAO will provide

specialised legal and technical advice about land tenure and rural

institutions as a way o responding to the emphasis placed on stateunctions to establish the regulatory rameworks that avour sustainable

economic growth and the mitigation o poverty.

Supporting the conservation, improvement and sustainable use o

natural resources or ood and agriculture. Faced with the challenge

o nding an appropriate balance between conservation o natural

resources and their sustainable use, the FAO will promote integrated

zoning systems or natural resources (including land) that are at the

same time economically viable, ecologically sustainable and culturally

appropriate. Special attention will be given to reinorcing mechanisms

or resolving conicts around the conservation and sustainable use o

genetic resources and water and land or agriculture.

It is important to take a moment to examine both the contextual analysis and the

strategies laid out in the strategic ramework because they more clearly reveal the

FAOs current motivations when dealing with the issue o land.

Firstly, attention is drawn to the emphasis on the regulatory unction o the state,

and the resulting emphasis on the regulatory and legal rameworks governing land

tenancy, access to and use o land. Tis emphasis on the regulatory unction o the

state is part o the redenition o the role o the state a result o neoclassic economic

theories, which later came to be known as neoliberalism (Friedmann, 1962). Other

state unctions, such as the redistribution o resources or the direct provision o

public services, recognised by other theoretical rameworks, have been set aside. As

we will see below, although the FAO is working on the issue o land redistribution,

in the last decade they have not published a single policy document that discusses intheory and practice the issue o land redistribution giving guidance about policies

and instruments or this purpose, whereas they have published a number o policy

documents on issues related to land administration. One possible reason why the issue

o redistribution is not given priority could be the act that the high concentration

o land is only perceived as a central problem in some regions and countries o the

world, and not as a generalised problem. Reorms to the administration o land, on

the other hand, to increase the security o land tenure as an incentive or economic

growth and investment; or in countries making the transition rom socialist to market

economies; or or motives o sustainable environmental management, have been on


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the agenda o almost all developing countries in the past decade. As mentioned above,

the FAOs character rom its origin has been o mere international coordination among

independent national states with quasi-normative competence. Tis means that the

organisation does not have any binding powers on its own to claim compliance withcertain standards rom Member States. Unlike other multilateral organisations, the

FAO neither has mechanisms o conditionality, which make it possible to impose

policies on member countries. o a large extent then, the Member States determine

the organisations priorities, ocuses and tasks. It could thereore be said that the FAO

has always accompanied the dominant trend in land policy among its Member States,

and that it acts more in a reactive way, rather than dening the agenda.4

A systematic examination o the motivations and decision-making processes with

regard to land policy within the FAO is outside o the scope o this study. For uture

research it would be interesting to study the dierent variables that could shed light

on the decision-making process, or example the role o its high ranking ocials (their

ideological background and political interests), the inormal networks o government

ocials and multilateral organisations that share political visions, schools o thought,

etc.; the role o the dierent governments and how they exercise their inuence in the

FAO; and the interaction with other multilateral agencies such as the World Bank,

UNDP, IFAD and others.5

Te document that reveals most about how the FAO analyses the lessons o past agrarian

reorms, and how it denes its role in the present circumstances, was produced by

members o the old Rural Development Division (Cox et. al., 2003). Te table quotes

the lessons collected in this document.

On the role o the FAO in agrarian reorm, the document asserts that the persistence

o rural poverty and landless communities in the majority o developing countries, as

well as growing social unrest in rural areas means that the FAO continues to receive

a large number o requests rom member states seeking consultancy and assistanceon the issue. Owing to its longstanding experience in this eld, the FAO considers

itsel well equipped to oer assistance in situations o potential conict, and it has the

comparative advantage o being perceived as an honest broker by governments, civil

society organisations and decentralised institutions (Cox et. al., 2003: 25).

4 Commenting on the diculties to implement the principles or national and international action set by WCARRD,Marchisio and Di Blase interestingly note: It would appear, thereore, that the legal ramework or agrarian structures,the institutional man/land relationship, property, and land use and exploitation continue to all essentially under eachStates domestic jurisdiction. Te real threat to continued exclusive State sovereignty in agrarian matters is probably theconcept reerred to as the international law o human rights (1991: 101, 102).

5 Tanks to Paolo Groppo, member o the FAOs Land enure Service, or identiying o these variables in an interviewwith the author in March 2007.


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Table 1: FAOs Agrarian Reorm Lessons Learned

Lesson 1:

Good governanceand the rule o lawcorrelate closelywith the successulimplementation othe process.

Te rule o law needs to prevail throughout the process.Measures to reduce the inherent instability and uncertainty thataccompany proound social change should be enacted decisively.Social mobilization, which is necessary to maintain momentumand political support o such changes, should be kept withinrational limits. [...] Moreover, good governance and eectivestate apparatus are required or successul implementation. [...]Among the most important [actors] were political will and goodgovernance (limited corruption and rent-seeking behaviour inthe implementation o the reorms). Similarly, it is essential toestablish suitable institutions to resolve land conicts.

Lesson 2:

Non-biasedmacroeconomicpolicies are crucialto the successulimplementation o anagrarian reorm.

[...] the overall macroeconomic conditions, especially thoseaecting interest and exchange rates, and including promotionalpolicies or agricultural production, are essential or the successo the agrarian reorm process.

Lesson 3:

Land redistributionneeds to be coupledwith the provisiono support servicesor beneciaries,including targetedaccess to capital,services and markets.

[...] a lack o support services or beneciaries and unavourablemacroeconomic actors subsequently hampered the perormanceo the reormed sector severely. Te provision o these servicesis critical, especially when dealing with beneciaries with lowentrepreneurial experience. [...] Where these services wereprovided by centralized state institutions, they were ofen slow,bureaucratic and unable to provide essential nancial, technical,organizational and other institutional support.

Lesson 4:

Te previousmanagerialexperience oagrarian reormbeneciaries isessential.

Te agrarian reorms in Egypt, Japan, the Republic o Korea, aiwan

Province o China and several states in India enabled tenants to become

owners o the land they cultivated. In part, these reorms were successul

because bestowing ownership rights on ormer tenants allowed the

continued use o existing physical inrastructure, [...] and institutional

inrastructure, as previously existing input supply, credit and marketing

structures were not disrupted. [...] Opportunities or reorms o this kind

are no longer signicant as they have already been undertaken.


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Lesson 5:

A rational system oindividual economicincentives in thereormed sector iscritical.

Unclear systems o rewarding individual productivity in the reormed

sector have proved damaging, as is reected in the poor results rom

most experiences with collective arming. Conversely, the introduction

o individual economic incentives can generate a highly dynamic

response [as in the cases o China and Viet Nam]. However, some

types o agricultural activity, such as extensive livestock production or

plantation-type exploitations, may require longer units. In these cases,

some orm o collective access to or use o land may be appropriate.

However, also in these cases there is a need to set up managerial and

economic incentives structures that guarantee individual responsibility

within a collective exploitation o natural resources.

Lesson 6:

Fair compensationpackages orlandowners (that is,ully compensatingor reinvestment andproviding or somereal liquidity) reducethe potential negativeimpacts on economicgrowth.

Payments or expropriated land that are viewed as conscatory can

generate violent reactions and will aect production and the overalleconomy substantially during the initial phase o agrarian reorm.

However, where there are well-established and relatively air rules

or compensation, outcomes are more positive. [...] No massive and

extensive agrarian reorm process has been undertaken by paying market

values or land in cash. Hence, it is necessary to check the costs o land

purchases and strike a proper balance between the need to contain these

costs and that o providing air compensation that will not discourage

investment in agriculture or elsewhere in the economy.

Lesson 7:

Social capital ormation

is important, through

the participation o

local communities and

beneciaries in taking

control o their own

development.

With the technical assistance o FAO, [armers groups in the

Philippines] have provided a successul model or community

development, including the capacity to negotiate or community

specic needs, such as inrastructure, credit, education and other social

services. [...] Tis example supports the need or these processes to be

highly participatory, involving the local communities in their own

development. Also important in this case is an inclusive perspective

involving a territorial rather than sectoral approach, contrary to that in

most agrarian reorm processes.Lesson 8:

Appropriate landadministrationcapacity is crucialto land reormimplementation.

Land administration is critical tool enabling the implementationo agrarian reorms, particularly through land surveying, titlingand registration, but also through land-use planning, landvaluation and land taxation. Land titling is requently a costlyprocess, but it generates major economic advantages by securingland rights and providing investment incentives. Te need to givedue attention to the interests o the poor and underprivileged,particularly women and indigenous peoples, has been recognizedas they have lost out in some titling projects.

Source: Cox, et. al., 2003: 21-23


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insTiTuTional framework

A number o FAO bodies work on activities related to land policy and agrarian reorm.

As mentioned in the introduction, the two principle bodies were, until the end o 2006,

the Land and Water Development Division, part o the Agriculture Department, andthe Rural Development Division, part o the Sustainable Development Department

comprised o the Land enure Service and the Rural Institutions and Participation

Service.

Te Land and Water Development Division is concerned with the productive and

sustainable use o land and reshwater resources through good practice in tenancy,

zoning, development and conservation. In particular, the Division is concerned

with planning and integral management o the land and plant nutrient resources,

improving soil ertility and the productivity o the land or ood production and other

environmental services.

Te Land enure Service analyses agrarian structures, land administration and the

design o settlements. It oers advice about markets and land transers, regularisation

o land tenure, ways o giving landless armers access to land, land inormation systems

and institutions or the transer o property.

Te Rural Institutions and Participation Service used to oer assistance with theormulation o policies and institutional mechanisms that increase the access o

poor peasants to employment, resources and services. It produced guidelines or

those responsible or the ormulation o policies and encouraged the creation o

rural development institutions. It actively sponsored popular participation in socio-

economic development, or example, through experimental projects that contributed

to the creation or reinorcement o autonomous peasant organisations.

As part o the current process o reorming the FAO (2005b), the Land and Water

Division was moved rom the Agriculture Department to the recently created NaturalResources Management and Environment Department, successor to the Sustainable

Development Department. Tis division will be divided into the Water Development

and Management Unit, on the one hand, while the other part, together with the old

Land enure Service, will make up the Land enure and Management Unit. Te old

Rural Development Division, particularly the Rural Institutions and Participation

Service, has disappeared. As a result o civil society criticism o the disappearance o

the Rural Development Division, the FAO council decided recently, in its 132nd session,

to appoint the Gender, Equality and Rural Employment Division in the Economic and

Social Development Department as a ocal point or rural development (FAO, 2007c).


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Te Agriculture Department, and the Agriculture Policy and Resource Mobilisation

Division o the echnical Cooperation Department also develop activities related to

land policy.

It is important to highlight here the dierent FAO bodies that deal with land policy

and agrarian reorm, because, as will be seen, they act with dierent mandates and

work in dierent areas.

3. The FAOs current land and agrarian reorm policies

Both in land policy and in general, the FAO articulates its tasks along three main

lines: normative work, operational work, and the promotion o exchange and mutual

understanding between governments on relevant themes. Te normative work

includes the collection, analysis and dissemination o inormation related to land.

It also develops and tests new research methodologies, and produces guidelines andrecommendations about good practice, to guide the political consultancy work (support

with planning, legislative reorm, production o strategies, etc.) to the member states.

Operational work consists o the technical assistance that the FAO oers its members

through projects that specically apply the expertise developed and accumulated in

the normative work. As a multilateral orum, the FAO promotes debate and exchange

between governments on issues where common understanding and agreements about

cooperation and collective action would be benecial.

3.1 normaTive programme

Within the FAOs normative programme on land policies, the work o the Land

Management Unit (ormerly the Land and Water Division) is particularly signicant. 6

Tis unit has databases such as ERRASA, perhaps the most important

inormation system or national statistics about the use, potential and limitations o

land or agriculture. Te unit also produces many publications, training materials

6 See http://www.ao.org/landandwater/portals.stm


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and other databases that deal with specic themes; agro-ecology zones, mapping and

classication o land, soil degradation, integrated plant nutrition systems, manure and

ertilizers are some o the most important.

Te other part o the normative work was developed by the Land enure Management

Unit (ormerly the Land enure Service) and the now deunct Rural Institutions and

Participation Service.

Within the normative work carried out by these two bodies (ormerly the Rural

Development Division) it is worth noting the publication, Land Reorm, Land Settlement

and Cooperatives. Tis publication is one o the principal orums or discussion o

eld experience, land tenure and agrarian reorm policies at an international level.

It brings together voices o practitioners and academics dealing with a wide range o

contemporary issues. Te mixture makes this publication particularly rich.7 Te role

o these two bodies in developing an unambiguous and unequivocal terminology o

the subjects related to land tenure or example, the Multilingual Tesaurus on Land

enure - has also been a major contribution to clariying the debates around land

issues.

Te Land enure Management Unit has produced an extensive number o publications

oering good practice guides in dierent areas such as agrarian reorm and land tenure,land and agricultural reconstruction inormation systems, land administration, rural

taxation, cadastre, registration, regularisation o land, land rights, land markets,

gender and land, common ownership, individual property, analysis o agrarian

systems, the alternative management o land tenure conicts, population dynamics,

land availability, and others (Cox et. al., 2003: 19). A summary o some o these studies

is presented below in order to give an idea o the institutional thinking behind some o

the central issues in the current land and agrarian reorm debate.

Cadastral Surveys and Records o Rights in Land (FAO, 1996b). Tis study is a revisiono an FAO study dated 1953. It starts rom the premise that planning and positive

development should be based on a precise understanding o the land situation and

it urges countries to build this understanding. Te study sets out to demonstrate

the advantages derived rom topographic surveys o land on a grand scale (maps),

and o a precise and up to date register o corresponding rights rom the points o

view o the champion o agrarian reorm, the land owner, governments, agriculture,

economic development and the general public. o this end, it introduces concepts

and methods relevant to topographic measurement, such as cadastral maps and land

7 See http://www.ao.org/sd/Ldirect/landr.htm


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registries. Te study also oers very practical guidelines to governments about the

design and application o projects o this kind, highlighting the importance o keeping

aected groups and public opinion duly inormed and the importance o these groups

acceptance o the incoming systems or reorms.

It is interesting to observe that this study specically stresses the importance o

cadastral surveys and land registries or the purposes o agrarian reorm, while

current literature on this theme (World Bank, 2003) ocuses on the advantages o the

same to protect property rights, encourage investment and improve taxation, without

mentioning the need to have precise land data in order to redistribute it in an accurate

and secure way.

Good Practice Guidelines or Agricultural Leasing Arrangements (FAO, 2003a).

Tis study explains how leasing has become a key issue or the FAO because o its

importance in agriculture, and its potential to give access to land to those who do not

own it. Te guidelines seek to better understand the elements to be taken into account

when agreeing leases to promote equilibrium and equality in the relationships between

landowners and lessees. Te guidelines introduce concepts and general principles,

and go on to make recommendations or good practice in leasing contracts and their

relationship with other contextual actors.

Te reasons given by the FAO or dealing with the issue o agricultural leases are the

same as those given by the World Bank in its report on land policy (World Bank,

2003). Teir handling o the issue diers rom that o the World Bank in that the FAO

guidelines give greater attention to an analysis o unequal power relations between

the landowner and the lessee. Nevertheless, this does not lead to recommendations

or the regulations that would be necessary in order to protect the weaker party in

the contract; in act, they recommend not scaring the land owner with redistribution

o power that is too great, or with responsibilities that are too onerous, and nding

a balance between the needs and desires o the land owner and the lessee in order toavour the long term cause o private sector leasing (FAO, 2003a: 47, 48).

Land enure and Rural Development (FAO, 2003c). Tis study contains a guide as to

why land tenure is important or rural development programmes. Te reasons given

emphasise the eradication o hunger and guaranteeing ood security or vulnerable

groups, particularly women, minorities and indigenous communities; providing the

rural population with assets so that they have more sustainable means o making a

living; stimulating economic growth and avoiding social instability and conict. Te

principle aim o the study is to amiliarise the people responsible or designing rural


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development policies with the context and key questions o land tenure. o this end, the

guide begins by explaining what land tenure is, and explaining the concepts related to

land administration, access to land and security o land tenure. It goes on to approach

the reasons why land tenure should be taken into account in project design, highlightingecological issues, questions o gender, conict and migrations, and the relationships

between them. Finally, the guide gives a series o practical recommendations or

including land tenure in the design o rural development projects.

Te guide manages to practically and integrally present key aspects o land tenure

in terms o designing rural development ocussed on guaranteeing ood security and

combating poverty. From the point o view o our analysis, the allusion made to a

human rights approach to land is interesting (FAO, 2003c: para. 2.5). Quoting the

United Nations Commission on the Status o Women, it says that discrimination

against women in rights to land is a violation o human rights. Without going into more

detail about aspects o human rights related to land tenure, the guide examines what

rights to land are recognised and or whom, or how long, with what ends and under

what conditions; and what institutional mechanisms exist to establish rights, and how

these are organised within a given project. With the exception o discrimination on

grounds o gender, other human rights concepts and tools, such as the right to ood and

the right to adequate housing, international human rights provisions against orced

evictions and arbitrary displacements, or indigenous rights to land and territory werenot taken into account.8

Gender and Access to Land (FAO, 2003b). Tis study presents guidelines with a view

to providing land administrators and other proessionals with basic inormation

about the reasons why gender issues are important or agrarian projects; and other

practical guides to the way in which problems o gender and equality could be

approached in the administration o land. Te study begins by giving denitions o

what is understood by access to land and security o tenancy and then describes its

importance in a rural and urban environment. It goes on to deal with the reasonswhy gender questions are important or agrarian reorm and land administration.

In this vein, the study presents some basic indicators that can be used to evaluate

and supervise access to land in relation to questions o gender. Finally, the study

emphasises the responsibilities o those responsible or the administration o land

and issues a series o practical recommendations or tackling the problems o gender

and equality in their work. It also recommends certain action principles to national

and international organisations, to promote the integration o gender issues into

land administration projects.

8 For a systematic list o international human rights instruments linked to access to land, see Monsalve Surez, 2007.


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In a way that is coherent with the study on land tenure and rural development, this

study highlights among the reasons why it is important to deal with issues o gender

in land policy, the act that equal access to land is a question o human rights, and

discrimination in land rights on gender grounds constitutes a violation o humanrights (FAO, 2003b: para. 3.1). Although there is no systematic or explicit treatment o

the issue rom a human rights point o view, these guidelines touch on the issue on a

number o occasions, or example, the proposed indicators include a call to document

and publish violations o rights to land when they take place, and exhort those

responsible or land administration to a be vigilant and ensure that reorms to land

administration systems, legislation and procedures do not negatively aect groups or

individuals rights to land.

Without a doubt, this study presents a more complex and detailed analysis o issues

around gender and land, and unlike the mainstream trend in land administration

projects, it is not exclusively restricted to the identication and documentation o rights.

On various occasions the study thematicises the disadvantages and possible damage

done to women in specic situations and contexts when ormalising land rights. It also

talks about the importance o other actors such as access to other productive resources,

inrastructure, etc. to really guarantee control o the land by women. Nevertheless, there

is a noticeable absence o inormation when it comes to landless women and how to

increase womens access to land in terms o redistribution policies.

Access to rural land and land administration afer violent conicts. (FAO, 2005a).

Tis study is a practical guide to help countries reconstruct their land administration

systems ollowing conicts. Te study begins by oering an overview o the general

conditions that prevail afer the end o hostilities, and o the specic conditions in

terms o access and land tenure. It goes on to study possible international interventions,

starting with missions to evaluate the situation, short term emergency humanitarian

aid projects, the development o a broader land policy ramework within which to deal

with issues such as claims, restitution, resettlement and the setting up o an operativeland administration system. Finally, it looks at how to evaluate and monitor the impact

o the established policies.

Unlike other studies on the issue o land in post-conict situations, which take a

more economic approach (World Bank, 2003), this FAO study stands out because it

consistently prioritises the question o access to land or the most vulnerable groups

aected by the armed conict, highlighting it in each o the dierent post conict

phases, as a crucial issue or ensuring lasting peace. Once again, the FAO presents

rights to land and housing as human rights, recognised in international law. It reers to


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various instruments such as the Geneva Convention, and the non-binding instruments

recently developed to protect the internally displaced persons, in order to deal with the

issue. (FAO, 2005a: para 3.4, 3.17).

In terms o access to land or indigenous peoples and pastoral nomads, the FAO has

commissioned expert studies and external consultants on these issues but it has not

dedicated a particular study to the topic, nor has it produced any specic guidelines. Te

FAO provided technical support or a paper on Cultural Indicators o Indigenous Peoples

Food and Agro Ecological Systems or the 2nd Global Consultation on the Right to Food,

Food Security and Food Sovereignty or Indigenous Peoples in 2006 (FAO, 2007a).

Te Rural Institutions and Participation Service produced training material

about topics including rural producers organisations, decentralisation processes,

participatory action research as a method or rural development, and the ormation o

rural groups and associations. It has also worked on the institutional issue, compiling

inormation about decentralisation processes and summarising the lessons learned

rom these processes and rom the development o local government in rural areas,

pastoral institutions and other kinds o institution.

Particularly noteworthy here is the Participatory and Negotiated erritorial

Development (PND) approach developed by both the Land enure Service andthe Rural Institutions and Participation Service (FAO, 2005c). Te starting point o

this approach is to analyse the existing relationships between local actors and their

territories and the implications o these relationships on local development. Key

concepts o this approach include the recognition o the heterogeneity o the actors

interests and visions o the territory; the concept o territory as spatial units o analysis,

shaped by the social and historical relations between the actors and the territory; and

the integration o the environmental, social, economic, political, cultural dimensions

o the actors visions o the territory. Te main purpose o PND approach is to reach

socially legitimised agreements by involving all actors and leading to their commitmentand ownership over the development process whereby power asymmetries that are

determined by unequal access to and control over resources and inormation, and

unequal capacities should be reduced in order to attain policies which are ecologically

sound, economically viable, socially just, and culturally appropriate. Methological

guidelines on how to implement this approach have also been developed.

Tese are some o the issues tackled in the FAO normative programme, producing

guidelines or civil servants, entities and organisations involved. It is worth mentioning

that the FAOs normative work ocuses in most cases on the development o policies


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in rural areas, leaving the urban spaces aside, although issues such as peri-urban land

tenure have begun to be developed.

3.2 Technical assisTance programme

Te FAOs technical assistance programme, also known as the eld programme,

oers technical assistance to governments, donors and organisations, based on the

knowledge held by sta and consultants at the FAO. Te FAOs technical assistance

programme is present at a global level and in various elds related to land policy.

Principle elds include land tenure reorm, land regularisation, cadastre and land

registries, rural taxation, land markets, access to land, agrarian reorm, agrarian

systems and amily-arm agriculture, gender and agrarian reorm, and rights to land

or pastoralist communities (Cox et. al., 2003: 19-20). Te FAOs technical assistance

projects generally do not have large nancial volume, and in many cases they take the

orm o pilot projects that are subsequently expanded and replicated.

Te extent o FAO technical assistance activity since 2000 is between 1500 and 2000 active

eld projects per year, with an overall annual delivery o $350 to $400 million per year. Te

nance or the eld programme comes in part rom the FAO central budget or RegularProgramme (contributions rom the member countries), which nances approximately

6 per cent o the activities, through projects rom the echnical Cooperation Programme

(CP) and the Special Programme or Food Security (SPFS). Te remaining nance

comes rom extra-budget resources, that is to say resources received rom donors such as

the developed and developing countries, UN agencies, unding bodies, the private sector,

local authorities and voluntary donations rom the general public. Te FAO/Government

Cooperation Programme (GCP), Unilateral rust Funds and rust Funds or emergency

assistance also play an important role in the unding.9 Te budget or the FAO Regular

Programme or technical work decreased by around 15 per cent between 1994-95 and2004-05. Combined with a decrease o 22 per cent in extra-budget resources in the same

period, this meant total resources ell by 19 per cent (FAO, 2007b: para. 229). Te budget

reduction o the regular programme meant a cut in resources or technical work around

land by 26.8 per cent (FAO, 2007b: para. 234).

We have extracted a list o current FAO projects related to access to land and rural

development rom the database o FAO projects.10 Te complete list can be ound in

9 Te nancial gures presented here were obtained rom the FAO website: http://www.ao.org/tc/unding_es.asp.10 See http://www.ao.org/tc/tcom/index_en.htm


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Appendix 1. Te periods covered by the database vary. Te most extensive period

covered is 2003 to 2011. It is not easy to unequivocally identiy all the FAO projects

related to land access. Tey are not specied in the database, but orm part o other

projects, registered under categories such as:

Food security, poverty reduction and other development cooperation

programmes

Rural development

Natural resources

Land policy

Sustainable management o natural resources

Food production in support o ood security

Legal assistance

Furthermore, the database does not provide complete descriptions o the projects that

would enable an unequivocal selection to be made. In spite o this serious caveat, the

list made provides some estimates.

Based on these estimates, around 22 per cent o eld projects that the FAO carried outand /or wil l carry out in the period 2003-11 are directly or indirectly related to access

to land. By region, this percentage is distributed in the ollowing way: approximately

83 per cent o the projects are concentrated in Arica, 9 per cent in Latin America,

6 per cent in Asia and the Pacic, and 1 per cent in Europe and the Middle East

respectively. As well as the greatest number o projects being concentrated in

Arica, the greatest volume o nance or the projects is also concentrated there.

Countries such as Sudan, Nigeria, Democratic Republic o Congo and Zimbabwe

receive projects with a nancial volume o between $69 and $32 million per year. In

Latin America, the countries with the biggest projects in terms o nancial volumeare (in descending order) Venezuela, Brazil, Haiti and Honduras, which range rom

$38 to $4 million. In Asia, Aghanistan has projects with the FAO or almost $12

million, India or more than $7 million, Indonesia or $6 million, and Cambodia

or $3 million.

A more detailed and specic, although not exhaustive description o the projects by

FAO in the last decade related to access to land has been presented by members o

the Land enure Service (FAO, 2006a). Using this document, a table presenting FAO

activities around land is presented below.


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Table 2: FAO land related technical cooperation projects

No. COUNTRY DESCRIPTION OF PROJECT

Improving access to land through redistribution:

1. Honduras FAO has provided technical assistance or the acquisition oland or small or landless armers in the Land Access PilotProject (PACA) through the Cooperative Programme withthe World Bank and through a CP project linked to trustund projects promoting the Special Programme or FoodSecurity.

2. Guatemala FAO provided technical assistance to Guatemala through theCooperation Programme with the World Bank to supportcommitments o access to land under the Socioeconomic andAgrarian and Indigenous Peoples sub-accords.

3. Brazil FAO has provided technical support to the countrys agrarianreorm and development o sustainable amily strategiesthrough a series o projects. FAO provided assistance to theInstituto Nacional de Colonizaao e Reorma Agraria (INCRA)to transer technology and production systems o successulamily arms to the new land reorm beneciaries. Guidelines

were elaborated or sustainable development or small amilyarming and household agriculture. FAO provides assistanceto the gender responsive policies, programmes and projectsthat reduce or eliminate legislative, administrative, socio-economic and behavioural obstacles to rural womens accessto productive resources in the agrarian reorm sector.

4. Colombia FAO supported the modernization o Instituto Colombianode Reorma Agraria (INCORA), and strengthened its capacityto valuate the eects o its work in the land redistribution,subsidies and credits, and the economic success o the newagrarian reorm.

5. Philippines FAO has provided support to the Governments ComprehensiveAgrarian Reorm Programme (CARP) through a number oprojects; FAOs technical assistance is targeted at agrarianreorm communities (AECs), that is, a cluster o villages(barangays) where 60 per cent or more o the population hasreceived land through the land reorm programme.


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6. Namibia FAO has provided technical assistance in support o thecountrys Agricultural (Commercial) Land Reorm Actthrough a CP project and consultancy nanced through theUK/FAO Consultants rust Fund. FAO provided assistance

in the preparation o regulation or the land tax and in thepreparation or the implementation o the tax.

7. Azerbaijan FAO provided technical assistance through the CooperativeProgramme with the World Bank in the privatisation andtitling o ormerly collective arm land, and the developmentand implementation o the organisational and legal rameworkor a unied real estate cadastre system.

8. ajikistan FAO provided assistance or the privatisation o arms throughthe Cooperative Programme with the World Bank.

9. Tailand Trough a eleood project, innovative use was made o landreorm area by providing ponds to raise tilapia in Chiang Rai.

Improving access to land through leasing:

10. Nepal Te Hills Leasehold Forestry and Forage Development Project(HLFFDP), ounded through a loan rom IFAD and a grant romthe Netherlands, aimed to raise the incomes o amilies livingbelow the poverty line and improve the ecological conditions ohill orest lands.

Improving access to land in emergency situations:

11. Angola FAO has been providing technical assistance to improvingaccess to land in Angola by resolving conicting claims or landarising rom the settlement o Internally Displaced Personsthrough several projects including one under the SpecialProgramme or Food Security.

12. Sudan FAO assistance enabled the land question to be addressed bothin the context o emergency (the IDP-resettlement and theminimization o conict) and o sustainable development. Teemphasis was placed on a rapid transition rom humanitarianrelie interventions associated with a conict environment todevelopment interventions that lay oundations or longer-term recovery to ormer levels o sel-reliance and sustainablelivelihoods.


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13. Sri Lanka

Indonesia

Following the devastating sunami o December 2004, theFAO has provided technical assistance on assessing land tenureproblems o displaced people.

Improving access to land or pastoralists:

14. Syria echnical support was provided to Syria to support thecoordination o state ownership o pastoral lands with rights ouse by local populations. Te interventions assisted in deningthe responsibilities o herder organizations in terms o territory,not a straightorward exercise among pastoral populationswho hold dierent rights at dierent seasons. Rather than asimple territorial demarcation, the projects aimed at deningreciprocal rights and duties in relations to territory.

15. Mali Te FAO provided technical assistance in support o theelaboration o a Pastoral Charter to ensure sustainable accessto, and use to o, pastures by herders as well as the air andpeaceul use o natural resources by other beneciaries such asarmers and sher olk.

Improving access to better land holdings:

16. ArmeniaHungary

Lithuania

Serbia andMontenegro

Te FAO is currently providing assistance through CPprojects.

17. unisia Te FAO provided technical assistance to deal with landragmentation. Land consolidation was used as an instrumentto mitigate conicts over the land, to modernize agriculturaltechniques, and to make production internationallycompetitive.

Improving secure access to customary land or communities:

18. Mozambique Te FAO provided technical assistance in an innovativeapproach to land rights that allows both local residents andinvestors to gain. Trough the implementation o a new policyand legislative ramework, land rights o local communities aredelimited and recorded.


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19. Ghana echnical assistance through the Cooperative Programmehas been provided in support o eorts to improve land tenuresecurity and build an ecient land registration unction bydemarcating and registering stool and skin land boundaries in

selected rural areas.

20. Panama Te FAO is providing technical assistance through theCooperative Programme with the World Bank in anintervention that pays particular attention to the protection oaccess to land by indigenous people through the demarcationo their territories.

Improving the security o access to privately-held land:

21. China Te FAO is implementing a CP project on rural and registrationthat has been assigned highest priority by the Government oChina.

22. Tailand Te Tailand series o land titling and registration projectsare widely recognised as being amongst the most successul inthe world. Tailand is moving towards its target o issuing 13million titles to armers.

23. Sri Lanka Assistance is being given to improve an ongoing land-titlingprogramme that the Government initiated in the mid-1990s bytesting the methods or introducing an appropriate systematicregistration o title to land parcels in ve trial sites.

24. Lao PeoplesDemocraticRepublic

Te assistance support the development o a land titlingprogramme aimed at extending secure ownership by providinga system o clear and enorceable land ownership rights.

25. Ukraine echnical assistance includes support or the systematicsubdivision o the land rom ormer collective arms and theissuing o state deeds or land to individual rural owners, thedevelopment on national cadastre system, and the services orrestructuring o arms.

26. Panama Te FAO is providing technical assistance through theCooperative Programme with the World Bank or thecompletion o a systematic legal cadastral survey and theregularization o property rights.


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27. Niger Te FAO assisted in the establishment o a legal ramework thatprovided long-term security or armers who migrated to newareas to gain access to land.

Improving the delivery o rural services through property taxation:

28. Namibia Te FAO provided technical assistance or the implementationo a land tax o commercial armland in order to support thecountrys Agricultural (Commercial) Land Reorm Act. TeFAO provided assistance in the preparation o regulations orthe land tax and in the preparation or the implementation otax.

29. Tailand Te FAOs technical assistance to Tailand through theCooperative Programme with the World Bank in a series oland titling and registration projects is resulting in greatlyimproved land taxation eciency being achieved.

30. Philippines Cooperative Programme support to the Philippines addressesproperty taxation aspects and the FAO is particularly involvedin the design o the implementation o the property taxationside o the scale project envisaged to ollow.

31. Cambodia

Lao PeoplesDemocraticRepublic

Assistance on an appropriate system o land taxation is beingprovided through the Cooperative Programme.

32. China In China, policy advice is at an early stage in response to thegovernments request or support in the implementation o

property taxes.

Source: FAO, 2006a.

Tis list raises interesting questions about the cooperation o the FAO with the World

Bank in the implementation o projects about land. FAO-World Bank cooperation

goes back a long way. From its very beginnings, the FAO has cooperated with the

International Bank or Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), a bank that orms

part o the World Bank. In 1964, this cooperation was institutionalised with the


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creation o the FAO Investment Centre with a view to better coordinate the use o the

FAOs technical and economic knowledge with the nancial resources o the IBRD/

World Bank or agricultural development. Te agreements between the FAO and the

regional development banks also date rom this period (Phillips, 1981). Te World Bankcontributed an average o 45 per cent o the total resources o the Investment Centre

in the period 2000-06 (FAO, 2007b: para. 308). Sta o the Investment Centre and

other FAO departments contributed to the production o both the rural development

strategyReaching the Rural Pooradopted by the World Bank in 2002 and the World

Development Report 2008 dedicated to agriculture. In the 2006 World Bank document

Renewed Strategy or Rural Development, the FAO and IFAD, are named as the keyUN

agencies with which the World Bank collaborates in order to deepen its knowledge

and experience o rural development in general, and more specically, to deal with the

issue o rural poverty beyond agriculture, including land tenure reorm and nutrition

(FAO, 2007b: para. 317).

he exact unctioning o the cooperation between the FAO and the World

Bank on land matters is outside o the scope o this investigation, but it would

be worth studying in more depth in uture. he preliminary report o the FAOs

Independent External Evaluation published in June 2007 suggests that institutional

collaboration between the FAO and the World Bank through the Investment

Centre may have made it possible or the FAOs expertise to inluence the WorldBanks rural development strategy, and in that way considerably widen the scope

o its inluence (Ibid).

Similar to what we have seen with the normative work, the FAO eld projects relating

to land concentrate on the regulatory ramework or land tenure, including scal

systems (Namibia, Tailand, the Philippines, Cambodia, Laos, and China), legal

rameworks, registration, cadastre, demarcation, security o tenure in private and

consuetudinary systems (Ghana, China, Tailand, Sri Lanka, Panama, and Niger), etc.

Projects related to increasing access to land that basically apply the market mechanismare ound in Honduras, Guatemala and Colombia; while in the case o Brazil and the

Philippines, they are supporting the sustainability o settlements o beneciaries rom

national agrarian reorm programmes based on expropriation mechanisms. Tere is

also an access to land project in Nepal that uses leasing. Projects to privatise collective

land systems were carried out in Azerbaijan, ajikistan and Ukraine. According to

this document, there is only one project relating to indigenous lands, and that is in

Panama. Projects related to pastoral land exist in Syria and Mali. Finally, there are

projects in post-conict situations (Angola) and emergencies (Sudan, Sri Lanka, and

Indonesia).


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3.3 mulTilaTeral exchange forum

In the past decade, the FAO has organised many seminars, conerences and meetings

to debate a wide range o issues, including land privatisation in countries on the way tobecoming market economies, land markets, public and private sector participation in

land tenure reorm, analysis o agrarian systems, land tenure databases, land conicts,

methodology or territorial planning, traditional land tenure systems, communal/

collective property resources, popular participation, gender and others (Cox et. al.,

2003: 19).

Almost thirty years afer calling the World Conerence on Agrarian Reorm and Rural

Development in 1979, the most prominent even at that level was the International

Conerence on Agrarian Reorm and Rural Development (ICARRD) organised

by the FAO in close collaboration with the Brazilian government in March 2006

in Porto Alegre. With this conerence, the FAO sought to promote and assume a

renewed commitment to agrarian reorm and rural development in order to meet

the Millennium Development Goals set by the international community, to halve the

number o hungry people in the world by 2015. Te principle thematic axes at the

conerence were:

Policies and experiences that have improved access to resources or the

poorest people;

Construction o local capacity to improve access to land, water,

agricultural inputs and agrarian services, to promote development and

the sustainable management o natural resources;

New development opportunities to strengthen communities and rural

producers;

How to combine concepts such as agrarian reorm, social justice and

sustainable development;

Food sovereignty and its contribution to airer access to resources. 11

Te conerence was attended by 92 governmental delegations and around 150 armers,

indigenous peoples, sher olk, rural womens organisations and NGOs. Unortunately,

there were no Heads o State present. Te nal declaration o ICARRD emphasised

11 See http://www.icarrd.org/index.html


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the outstanding role agrarian reorms have to play in ghting hunger, the need or

a sustainable development model and respect or human rights. Te declaration

adopts a participatory ocus based on economic, social and cultural rights, or the

air management o land, water, orests and natural resources, particularly or womenand vulnerable or marginalised groups. In areas with strong social disparity, poverty

and hunger, agrarian reorm should widen and secure access and control o land and

natural resources. States should play a crucial role in the implementation o agrarian

reorms. International solidarity and support or peasant armers and rural workers

and landless peasants organisations should be increased. With the aim o supporting

agrarian reorm, the FAO wants to establish platorms or social dialogue, cooperation,

monitoring and evaluation o progress in agrarian reorm and rural development.

o this end, the nal declaration recommends that the FAO Committee on World

Food Security adopt the appropriate measures or implementing the ICARRD nal

declaration and setting guidelines or submitting reports (FAO, 2006b).

Although the ICARRD declaration did not deal with the structural causes that these

days strip rural communities o their lands and o their control over agricultural

resources, ood systems and markets,12 the ICARRD is in both orm and substance an

important contribution to the debates and actions that need to take place on the issues

surrounding agrarian reorm and rural development in the years to come. Te ICARRD

was a unique experience enabling rural social movements and other civil societyorganisations to participate in the process o preparing and holding the conerence on

an equal ooting with governments, and in a way that respected their autonomy. Te

ICARRD was thereore a rare example o an international governmental conerence

that oered sucient space and possibilities or rural social movements and civil

society organisations to be able to eectively inuence the results o the conerence.13

Social movements and other organisations highlight the act that the ICARRD nal

declaration contains a series o relevant guidelines that allow or a critical revision o

land policies and agrarian reorm taking place within the ramework o structural

adjustment policies in the past decade. Tese include:

12 For an analysis o these structural causes, see Lewontin, 1998; Ross, 2003; Rosset, 2005; Winduhr and Jonsen, 2005;FIAN and La Via Campesina, 2005.13 Te participation o civil society was acilitated by the NGO/SCO International Planning Committee or FoodSovereignty (IPC). IPC is the global network that includes organisations o peasants, small armers, landless peoples,sher olk, indigenous peoples, rural workers and NGO networks with long experiences o action and advocacy onissues linked to ood sovereignty and agriculture. Te IPC has been working since 2002 to listen to the voices o socialmovements and civil society organisations in international orums dealing with issues related to Food Sovereignty,particularly the FAO. In 2003, the Director General o the FAO recognised the IPC as its principle interlocutor withcivil society at a global level, in terms o the initiatives and issues arising rom the NGO/SCO Forum Te World FoodSummit: Five Years Laterin June 2002. Te IPC organised Land, erritory and Dignity parallel to the ICARRD. Tenal declaration o this orum orms part o the ocial documentation o the ICARRD. See http://www.icarrd.org/en/news_down/IPC_en.pd.


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Te reerence to the 1979 World Conerence on Agrarian Reorm and

Rural Development.

Reerence to the FAO Voluntary Guidelines on the Right to Food as anessential consideration in rural development.

Recognition o individual, communal and collective orms o land

tenure.

A strong ocus on gender.

Te recognition o dierent rural groups (rural women, peasant

communities, landless peasants, indigenous people, orest communities,

sher olk, nomadic pastoralists), their rights and interests.

Te need to establish agrarian reorm policies in situations o great

social disparity and poverty in order to increase sustainable access and

control o land, water and other natural resources.

A participatory ocus, based on economic, social and cultural rights,

and good public management o land, water, orests and other naturalresources.

A recognition and specic support in various paragraphs or traditional

and amily arming, small-scale production systems and small-scale use

o natural resources.

An emphasis on the importance o local and national markets, above

international ones.

Strengthening the role o the State so that it implements and develops

more just policies and programmes, centred on the population to

guarantee ood security and welare or all citizens.

Recognition o the organisations working or ood sovereignty.

Te implementation o the ICARRD nal declaration has unleashed an intense

polemic at the heart o the FAO. Owing to strong opposition rom the European

Union, the USA, Canada, Australia and Japan, in November 2006 it was not possible


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to reach any agreement during the session o the FAO Committee on World Food

Security about how it should be implemented. Te issue was thereore remitted to the

Committee on Agriculture (COAG), which met in April 2007. In the rst months o

2007, social movements and other civil society organisations continued to mobilisein many countries, demanding their national governments implement the ICARRD.

Pressure rom civil society, together with the strong commitment o countries

such as Brazil to ollow up the ICARRD at an international level, made it possible

to unblock the process.14 In its nal report, the COAG highlights the importance o

agrarian reorm and rural development and the particular signicance and role o the

FAO in this eld. Furthermore, it asks the FAO secretariat to take a series o specic

measures to guarantee the necessary institutional capacity to ollow up the ICARRD

(FAO, 2007d: para. 48-49). In act, FAO management decided to und rom its core

budget, three regional echnical Cooperation Programmes (CP) or ICARRD ollow

Land Policy 1

Documents

Transcript of Land Policy 1