The Learning exchange with civil society and grassroots change agents took place from 7th to 9th November 2013. Its purpose was to bring together civil society and grassroots change agents for a joint learning on land challenges, good practice approaches and in-country testing and development of land tools, in order to build and strengthen GLTN country level engagement.
Fourteen participants attended, nominated by eight organisations and youth networks, that further represented constituencies from over 120 countries.
The main land challenges identified by the civil society and grassroots representatives included the following:
- Insecure tenure,
- Commodification of land
- Land grabbing
- Lack of transparency
- Rapid shifts in population
- Competing types of tenure claims
- Capacity for land administration
- Loss of environmental stewardship
- Exclusion and non-participation and;
- Land policy gaps
The strategies for grassroots and civil society collaboration on in-country land tool development and testing that were formulated included:
- Communities networking at scale (at local, national, regional and global levels)
- Community led data collection in partnership with governments
- Recognition of key demographics and identities generally invisible (youth, women, historically marginalized, etc.) and;
- Partnerships with governments to build inclusive institutions for effective, equitable land administration.
The three day learning exchange directly preceded the Partners’ Meeting and the participants were invited to share the outputs of the workshop in the Partners’ meeting and to engage and network with a broad spectrum of key global and regional players on land.