The 5th GLTN Partners’ Meeting Begins

The Global Land Tool Network (GLTN) welcomes you to its 5th Partners’ Meeting, to be held at The Hague in The Netherlands, from 11 – 15 November 2013.

Partners’ Meeting History
From its beginning in early 2004, GLTN has steadilly been expanding and is now composed of 60 international partners with over 2,200 individual members.

The first Partners’ meeting in Stockholm, Sweden was convened on the 24 – 25 November 2005 and was jointly organized by UN-Habitat and Sida. The Workshop focused on the Why, What and How of the establishment and functionalities of Network, including the institutional and financial consequences.

It was followed by a second Partners’ meeting held in Norway on the 23 – 24 March 2006 and was jointly organized by UN-Habitat, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Norad, the Norwegian Mapping Authority and Sida. The discussions at that time were on the identification of concrete mechanisms to support on-going GLTN initiatives, particularly in the identification of which were the appropriate pro-poor land tools, interaction around the establishment of a Network and key agreements on the way forward. With these two meetings as a foundation, GLTN as a Network was finally launched at the World Urban Forum III in June 2006 at Vancouver.

The third Partners’ meeting took place from 4 – 5 November 2009 in Nairobi, Kenya, as highlighted by the GLTN Phase 1 Mid-Term Assessment, and attended by 60 participants. The main objective of the meeting was to strengthen the partnership arrangements to improve synergy and interactions towards advancing the GLTN agenda, core values and objectives and deciding concrete contribution for its success.

The fourth Partners’ meeting took place in Nairobi, Kenya, 15-16 November 2011. The Network counted 45 partners with about 1,700 individual members that include professionals, development partners, research and training institutions, civil society groups and grassroots organizations. The meeting’s theme was “Strengthening Partnerships: Sustaining the paradigm shift towards designing, developing and implementing pro-poor land tools and approaches”. The meeting also aimed to promote alternative land tenure and land management systems to improve tenure security within the land governance framework.

The 5th Partner’s Meeting

The 5th edition of the GLTN partners’ meeting will have three main objectives:

1) Strengthening partnerships and networking at global, regional and national levels.
GLTN will continue to work and collaborate with partners at various levels, and – in line with this commitment at the Partners’ Meeting the new GLTN Partnership Strategy will be presented and discussed in detail. The Network currently has 60 international partners consisting of known and reputable agencies and institutions working in the land sector, and it is steadily growing. As it expands its operations at regional and country levels, it is important to empower partners to co‐implement activities at those levels.

2) Promoting and rolling out tool development and implementation, capacity development and good learning practices at country level and in programmes.
In the coming years, GLTN is expected to continue to catalyse and work with partners towards expanding the role of partners in project implementation. Going forward, it is envisioned that partners will be co-implementers of major activities particularly in regards to tool development and testing, advocacy and knowledge management and capacity development initiatives and learning. GLTN is working towards ensuring that at country level, the role of the implementing partners is strengthened as their policy and technical inputs, local knowledge and project ownership are important for any planned interventions. Capacity development will be included as an integral part of tool development and testing, in particular at country level.

3) Expanding country level operations in a coordinated and strategic fashion.
One of the key topics to be discussed during the 5th partners’ meeting is the country level implementation strategy of GLTN. The Secretariat has prepared a draft country implementation plan (draft Plan) that will guide GLTN Phase 2. The draft Plan has undergone preliminary consultation with some partners and will be more fully discussed and possibly endorsed by GLTN partners at the meeting.

Programme

For more information on the five-day meeting and other side events as well as a detailed program of activities please click here.