"The Landless and the Future of the Commons".

Online debate and three webinars (June - August 2021)

OUTLINE OF THE SYNTHESIS :

1. Landlessness and land inequality have worsened over the past decade.
2. Need for a change in the development model for the countries of the South.
3. Governments and the private sector play a negative role in increasing landlessness.
4. Land reforms to be reconsidered: not just land redistribution
5. People-centred land reforms: different meanings
6. Women's rights and their role in land governance must be better recognised.
7. Priority to the recognition of the commons rather than privatisation
8. The need to support the recognition of inclusive customary rights in practice
9. Strengthening local struggles
10. What progress has been made on international agreements/standards to combat land grabbing?
11. What global alliances and strategies have/can be created? The need for a strong alliance led by people's organisations against the neoliberal globalisation model
12. Articulating local and national/regional/global struggles: bottom-up or top-down approach?

1. Landlessness and land inequality have worsened over the past decade.

1. Land inequality has increased at an unprecedented rate, as has social and economic inequality, particularly over the past decade.
2. Land grabbing in the EU agricultural policy area is a major problem: 1% of farms control 20% of cultivated land, 3% of farms own 50% of cultivated land and 80% of farms can only access 14.5% of cultivated land. As a result, small farmers are losing a large part of their cultivable land.
3. These inequalities create food insecurity in some parts of the population, while the most fertile land is used for agro-industry and export products.
4. The landless include farmers who have lost their land, but also sharecroppers, traditional populations living off natural resources (extractivism) and very small farmers.
5. Women are particularly affected as they are the most dependent on natural resources and are involved in the production of food for the household.
6. Population growth and the needs of future generations in terms of land use in the South are not taken into account in the development of a redistributive and distributive land policy.
7. Urbanisation is also an important challenge to consider.
8. The very real dangers of building national parks as a form of environmental grabbing that disproportionately affects indigenous communities - e.g. from Banten province in Indonesia.
9. The exponential growth in some parts of Africa of land grabbing by foreign investors for mining and other extractive activities - e.g. Chinese foreign investment in the mining sector in Madagascar

2. The need for a change in the development model for the countries of the South.

1. Southern countries cannot copy and paste Northern agrarian policies - their migration context, agricultural policies (e.g. subsidies) and industrialisation models are completely different from those of Northern countries when they started their agrarian transition. The countries of the South cannot be content to reduce their population living off the land as farmers to only 3% of their total population over the next 50 years. The proportion of rural people and farmers is still high, even in China, which is experiencing a rapid growth process. We are talking about at least 2.5 billion people in the world who are engaged in small-scale farming. If we add to that the landless workers and various other categories dependent on natural resources, whether pasture, forest, fish, etc., we are really talking about almost half the world's population. And that may not even be an environmentally sustainable model.

3. Governments and the private sector are contributing to the increase in landlessness.

1. Governments often do not want to encourage rural people to become self-sufficient. They prefer to keep them dependent, creating an army of low-cost workers to keep wages low.
2. Land is increasingly becoming a commodity for international stock markets, with the development of shareholders investing in land, particularly in Europe
3. Land grabbing in the EU agricultural policy area is a major problem: 1% of farms control 20% of cultivated land, 3% of farms own 50% of cultivated land and 80% of farms can only access 14.5% of cultivated land. As a result, small farmers are losing a large part of their cultivable land.
4. In Africa, for example, governments talk about the need to facilitate the installation of young people as farmers, to fight against migration, but the real priority is given to multinational companies, with very negative impacts on livestock farmers...
5. The privatisation of land in Africa is facilitating green business not only by large companies but also by local investors, with the risk of marginalising traditional populations, especially pastoralists, and fuelling conflict.
6. Land is increasingly becoming a commodity for international stock markets, with the development of shareholders investing in land, particularly in Europe
7. The growing threat of the digitisation of land - i.e. large agricultural companies partnering with large technology companies to identify land for purchase and reorganise land registries through digital registries that end up disenfranchising small and marginal farmers - e.g. the Mirador housing estate in Brazil.

4. Land reforms to be reconsidered: not just a redistribution of land

1. Today, an agrarian reform programme is absolutely urgent and necessary. It is not only about distributing land, producing raw materials for industry, but also about producing healthy food, ensuring food sovereignty, preserving the environment and improving urban life;
2. An agrarian reform that is a project of human emancipation from an economic, social, political and cultural point of view, where common goods are not considered as commodities but as the patrimony of Humanity, and where women are emancipated and have access to the land as well.
3. With regard to land reforms, we need to ask why so many of these reforms have failed to secure long-term tenure rights for the landless and why, after a few years, land concentration has resumed.
4. Agrarian reform failed in Guatemala because large landowners sold their less fertile land at a high price and kept the fertile land to pursue monoculture for export. Without adequate technical and market support, small farmers could not sustain themselves.
5. Agrarian reform needs to be complemented by supportive policies, especially in terms of agricultural prices and protection of the food market against low-priced imports from other countries with a comparative advantage.

5. People-centred land reforms: different meanings

1. We need to work towards 'people-led' land reforms that include 'bottom-up approaches' rather than waiting for state action, which in many cases is not representative and does not focus on the needs of the most marginalised. In India, for example, social activist Vinoba Bhave redistributed 4.2 million acres of land to landless people. He was convinced that these issues should be addressed at the source, directly to the people concerned. Communities themselves must take responsibility for land reform and social change at the local level.
2. However, there are different definitions of people-centred land reform. For the ILC, it is "based on the idea that land is not a commodity, land is not for money, land is about human dignity, human well-being and human survival. ”
3. ILC members have defined "people-centred land governance" as land governance that respects the territorial rights of indigenous peoples, gives equal land rights to women, enables sustainable and local management of ecosystems, protects land rights defenders and does not allow land grabbing. Hence the concept of 'people-centred policies'.
4. However, this concept is criticised: "People-centred agrarian reform, while promoting inclusiveness and transparency, still seems to accommodate land tenure arrangements within the dominant development model, I consider that it still perpetuates the status quo and reduces political conflicts instead of fully supporting the landless, peasants and others who are struggling for real solutions to their problems and does not represent transformative structural changes. For that, we need real peasant-led agrarian reforms, transformative changes.

6. Women's rights and their role in land governance must be better recognised.

1. Women's rights are often not recognised by customary systems. In Central and West Africa, there is a big problem because women have to work on their husband's land, but when he dies, widows no longer have access to the land even though they are the ones who feed their children.
2. Therefore, an important struggle is to improve the law in favour of women. One proposal is to organise an international movement for women's access to land, by asking states to commit to at least 30% of land being allocated to women and women's associations.
3. Women play an important role in establishing appropriate management systems in customary landscapes. They are also often at the forefront of struggles.
4. We need to invest in women's leadership so that women leaders can be real change-makers when they have the space to be leaders and their leadership is supported.

7. Priority to the recognition of the commons rather than privatisation

1. Land is a gift of nature. All natural resources are gifts of nature. It is absolutely imperative that we assert with strength and conviction that they are common...
2. In West Africa, mobilisation against land privatisation, and for the recognition of customary tenure and management of natural resources as common property, by local people and groups, including the very important pastoralists.
3. Instead of privatising land and natural resources as commodities, we need to recognise land as our mother and the sacred source of life, which local communities have the right to access and use for food production (Central America).
4. The persistence of colonial-era land regulation has disproportionately affected marginalised communities in large parts of the decolonised world.

8. The need to support the recognition of inclusive customary rights in practice

1. Even if customary rights are constitutionally recognised (as they have been in Indonesia since 2012), there is a long struggle and a lot of effort to get them recognised by the courts in practice, as they have to demonstrate that they are the long-standing customary owners of land that has been transferred to other farmers or businesses, to public forest or national parks since colonial times.
2. In the case of Madagascar, customary rights are also recognised by law, but without external support, communities do not know how to defend themselves. When they go to court, they can win their cases against encroachment (e.g. by a Chinese mining company).
3. Recognition of common rights is not enough, we must also help people to organise themselves to manage these customary landscapes with modern methods.
4. Even where customary rights are recognised, there is a risk that traditional elites will not resist corruption. Large companies and landlords also often encourage conflict between communities. Communities must be united to resist.
5. In Central Africa, customary leaders and local elites are often the ones who sell customary land directly to multinationals or private companies, sometimes without the knowledge of the government. It is therefore necessary to mobilise communities at the local level first, before moving up to the district, province, country and beyond.
6. We need to keep an eye on how customary tenure systems or collective commons are governed, to ensure that they include young people and women, as they are often excluded from these arrangements.

9. Strengthening local struggles

1. The leadership role should be played by people's organisations and, as far as possible, by women
2. We need to build partnerships with like-minded organisations - organisations that can support an agenda based on solidarity with the struggles of local communities. These partnerships can include NGOs, research organisations and even government agencies.
3. How do we do community organising? When we work with communities to educate them about their rights, using national and international human rights legal instruments, communities tend to become more aware and start to become more assertive in what they are doing and more engaged because they have realised that they own the process, that they are leading the process, and that's a lot of what we are looking for: that the voice of the community, from a rights-based perspective, is heard and drives the process; because when the community supports efforts towards land governance, the results are often very interesting.
4. "If CSOs and people's organisations are not strongly allied, it becomes difficult for them to make their voices heard; and for this to be very strong, coordinated technical and financial support is needed.
5. Land rights defenders are at high risk of being victimised in a number of ways - building alliances and working together is very important and effective in dealing with potential reprisals.
6. Local organisations and the social movement should not be idealised. They also have their own conflicts and contradictions.
7. Bringing different movements together in intersectional, multi-class and multi-caste movements amplifies voices and chances of success.

10. What progress has been made in terms of international agreements/standards to combat land grabbing?

This has led to much debate, between those who believe that international declarations and agreements are useless unless they are binding, and those who believe that they are useful on the ground, first as an awareness-raising tool, then as a tool for government engagement, and finally those who believe that they can drive global standards in the long term. One proposal from the first group is to focus on a legally effective and binding instrument for states and companies.

1. What is the purpose of UNDROP?
   •   A turning point in the recent history of small farmers, the landless peasantry and the rural poor, because of the emphasis on the right to land, seeds and biodiversity, as well as several 'collective rights'. The sense of ownership that UNDROP provides as a grassroots statement is of paramount importance. It connects people from different sectors and provides very relevant tools for negotiations with policy makers. It has also been incorporated into the constitutions of some progressive countries.
   • It is possible that the UNDROP resolution could be incorporated into the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) in order to clarify the specific obligations of State Parties regarding land and land tenure governance under the International Covenant (a consultation is underway, to which all organisations are invited to contribute).
   • But in other countries, it is only through internal struggle for more progressive governments that these rights can be recognised. And there has been strong opposition from powerful countries, including the US and the UK, to recognising peasants as a "distinct social category".
   • On the other hand, there is a huge gap between the UN's international declarations, which are not binding, and what is happening on the ground. The UN has become a 'talk shop'. This is in contrast to the important binding agreements that are made at the WTO level.
   • There is a lot of talk, but there is very little attempt to heed its core messages as far as national elites are concerned. The disappointment is really great, because the kind of policies that dominate are part of the prevailing neo-liberal context, in which the interests of capital are paramount, leading to a whole range of policies that are in fact exactly the opposite of what is required
2. "Using international human rights instruments but also national human rights instruments can create space for dialogue. When we think of the land tenure guidelines, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants (UNDROP), the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) that have led to alliances at the community and national level, for example CSOs, women's rights movements that have formed have created a sense of solidarity and sometimes even allied themselves with the government. If CSOs are able to understand their rights, understand the provisions, understand how to articulate their struggles in policies, this can help them create a space for interaction with the authorities, leading to implementation."
3. Strong regional and global partnerships are needed to move standards and political will forward - the passage of UNDROP, the African Land Policy Framework and guidelines such as the Voluntary Guidelines on Governance of Tenure (VGGT). These regional and global frameworks are extremely important in moving global standards towards greater acceptance of the importance of land rights.
4. International discussions are currently underway at the Human Rights Council on a "binding instrument" to ensure that corporations respect basic human rights, including the right of peoples to their natural resources (e.g. the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights). The Global Campaign to Dismantle the Power of Multinationals (https://www.stopcorporateimpunity.org/traite-contraignant-de-lonu/?lang=fr) calls for the creation of a World Court of Justice with binding jurisdiction (not optional like the current International Court of Justice) that can sanction companies and states responsible for violations. How can we increase the pressure on states to finally put in place an effective judiciary at the supranational level to protect fundamental rights?

11. What global alliances and strategies? The need for a strong alliance against the neo-liberal globalisation model led by people's organisations

All agree that a strong global alliance and alliances at the national level are needed, led by people's organisations, i.e. movements representing the people on the ground who depend on land and natural resources. 

In terms of strategies and objectives, a range of approaches have been described, from the need to have as a central principle the fight against global neo-liberalism, to approaches that aim to change the system from within by changing international norms. It is clear that further discussion is needed to determine whether these approaches are compatible or exclusive...

For which strategies?

1. The first and most important thing is to reject the contemporary model of neoliberal globalisation.
2.  Secondly, the real challenge is how to build a very strong political alliance against neo-liberal globalisation, a coalition whose centre is clearly small-scale production and landless peasants like the majority of the world's population.
3. Strong regional and global partnerships are needed to drive standards and political will - the passage of UNDROP, the African Land Policy Framework and guidelines such as the Voluntary Guidelines on Governance of Tenure (VGGT).
4. Focus on collecting people-centred data to highlight the severity of the situation at the local level and to expose those responsible. Ongoing dispossession is not visible in many cases because countries do not keep track of/ maintain statistics and data. We need to invest more in data collected by people, managed by people and controlled by local organisations so that we can put the power of data in the hands of local communities.
5. On the other hand, in cases where land dispossession is the result of international investments, networks of opaque and corrupt financial institutions that finance such investments, there is a need for strong South-North alliances with technical expertise at the international level to support local movements, which are able to use their technical expertise and knowledge to map, identify and begin to mobilise to dismantle these opaque processes.

How do we build these global alliances?

1. We must work together to be a platform for people's voices. The voices that need to be heard are those of women, men and communities, pastoralists, fisherfolk and indigenous peoples who live on the land - these are the voices that need to be heard in these regional and global processes.
2. Establish partnerships to complement strong self-governing people's organisations.
3.  The leadership role should be played by people's organisations and, as far as possible, by women.
4. Work with organisations and alliances beyond your immediate network - public, civil society, research.
5. Question: what about partnerships with the private sector? 

12. Articulating local and national/regional/global struggles: bottom-up or top-down approach?

There is agreement that working at grassroots level, with communities, is the most important. However, there is a debate between those who think that the movement should be built from the bottom up as a priority and those who think that all levels should work in synergy. 

1. Local mobilisation and activism must take precedence over regional and national mobilisation. We need to find ways to develop these local mobilisations into global alliances. However, these global alliances must remain true to their local origins and avoid over-reliance on state-led or centrally administered solutions.
2. "We have to be united to be strong. If we are not strong, the small farmers will disappear. We have to start from the village level and work our way up, not from the top down.
3. Question: How do vulnerable farming/rural groups generate funds within their communities and alliances to create a set of actors that will contribute to creating linkages, questioning, self-criticism, understanding, experimenting with alternative socio-economies, rebalancing power relations and creating counter-movements?
4.  "The challenge is really to get these partnerships to bring about real change, to make sure that these policies are implemented on the ground, in the communities, what we call bottom-up community, democracy and state-building from the bottom up, not from the top down.
5. Working together at regional level, such as the Caravans, builds strength both on the ground and in dialogue with politicians.
6. We need to unify all layers of the struggle, all ideologies... we see that the grassroots struggles are the most important. But these struggles need support, both from each other and from other sources - you can't have proper action in the streets if you don't have judicial support, and to have judicial support you need political support as well as agrarian laws.