IS-Academy on Land Governance for Equitable and Sustainable Development (LANDAC) 2016

The "IS-academy" concept was initiated in 2005 by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands in order to strengthen the role of knowledge and research in the fight against poverty and for sustainable development. In 2010, the IS-academy entitled: 'Land Governance for Equitable and Sustainable Development' has been launched. This IS-academy on land governance will operate as a partnership between IDS (University of Utrecht - leading partner), Agriterra, Africa Study Centre (ASC) (Leiden), Chair Disasters Studies (CDS -Wageningen University), HIVOS, Royal Tropical Institute (KIT- Amsterdam), Triodos Facet and the Department for Sustainable Development of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (DDE). These collaborating partners have a broad network of local counterparts (including universities, NGOs, producer organizations and other civil society organizations, financial institutions, ministries) and embassies with whom they collaborate in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The IS academy partners will invite their southern counterparts and other organisations based in the global south that are working on land governance to participate in activities of this IS-academy from the start. Land governance today is about managing diverging interests, competing claims, and processes of inclusion and exclusion. It is also about processes of institutional change, as the rules of access to land and the nature of property regimes change, covering a wide range of topics (tenure rights, land administration, land use, systems for dispute resolution, decentralisation). Land governance choices are influenced by paradigms related to agricultural development, private sector development, public administration, law, gender equity, indigenous rights, environmental governance, etc. A range of new, often opposing pressures and interests need to be reconciled. Land governance processes needs to strike a balance between protecting rights and promoting the most productive use of land; between economic progress, sustainable land use and social justice. Although new land policies seek to secure the rights of smallholders, these policies (or other policies) promote large-scale farming and productive use of land. Other issues that influence policies related to land are the aspirations of rural inhabitants to leave for urban areas, the implications for land rights and use of rapid urban expansion, processes of speculation in the peri-urban sphere, and 'urbanization'. The guiding question of this IS academy is how to optimize the link between land governance, sustainable development and poverty alleviation; and thus how to deal with new pressure and competing claims, while maximizing opportunities for inclusive and equitable development.