LANDac Annual International Conference 2017

29-30 June 2017. Utrecht, the Netherlands. LANDac’s Annual International Conference 2017 looked back over the decade since the land grab “hype” began, analysing the processes of transformations that have taken place in those locations where investments have been made and revisiting our understanding of the implications of these investment flows for food security, rural livelihoods and local development.

Topics highlighted during the conference included: food security; infrastructure development; displacement, migration and mobility; compensation and resettlement; cities and urban expansion; inclusive development; conflict and competing claims; natural resources and environmental protection; gender and generation; and administration and technologies; and climate change and resilience, among others.

Programme
Promotional materials
Presentations

Extract of the programme:

• Good practices in investments in Liquid Natural Gas investments in Northern Mozambique Chairs: Griet Steel, LANDac and Utrecht University & Karin van Boxtel, Both ENDS
• Scaling up women’s land rights in Africa6 Chair: Michelle Nuijen, LANDac and Utrecht University
• Authorizing expropriation effectively: lessons from South Africa Ernst Marais. University of Johannesburg
• Improving the positive impacts of investments on smallholder livelihoods and the landscapes they live in Herman Savenije, Tropenbos International, Gerard Baltissen, KIT, Marleen van Ruijven, FMO, Hugo Verkuijl, HIVOS, Kees van Dijk and Maryse Hazelzet, the Rock Group
• Land occupation models and its implications on rural development in Mozambique Natacha Bruna, Observatorio do Meio Rural (OMR) Mozambique
• A good practice on the implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Lands, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (VGGT) - The multi-actor and multi-sector approach in Sierra Leone Christian Schulze, FAO

Scaling up women’s land rights in Africa 

Panel Chair: Michelle Nuijen, LANDac 

• El Hadji Faye Enda Pronat Senegal 
• Clemente Ntauazi ADECRU Mozambique 
• Nzira Razao de Deus Forum Mulher Mozambique 
• Esther Mwaura GROOTS Kenya 
• Alice Siema GROOTS Kenya 
• Philip Kilonzo ActionAid International Kenya 
• Catherine Gatundu ActionAid International 
• Andrew T.D. Mkandawire Oxfam Malawi

Local livelihoods and customary land governance 

Chair: Jur Schuurman, LANDac 

• The recognition of customary land rights: lessons from the Province of Bie in Angola Marco Orani, World Vision 
• Inclusive development of tenure security and economic growth for Namibia’s communal areas 15 Winnie Mwilima and Rose-Mary Kashululu, Namibia Ministry of Land Reform 
• Impacts of Large Scale Foreign Land Acquisitions on Rural Households: Evidence from Ethiopia Emma Aisbett, Hamburg University; Giulia Barbanente, Erasmus University 
• Chiefs, Farmers, Businessmen and Officials: On-the-ground Processes of Land Privatization in Burkina Faso Elizabeth Gardiner, The Ohio State University 

Book launches

• Inclusive businesses in Agriculture. What, how and for whom? Critical insights based on South African cases Authors: Wytske Chamberlain and Ward Anseeuw Published by: SUN MeDIA Metro, South Africa Year: 2017
  Copyright © 2017 AFRICAN SUN MeDIA and the authors, 282 pages
• Land Law and Governance: African Perspectives on Land Tenure and Title Editors: Hanri Mostert, Leon Verstappen and Jaap Zevenbergen Published by: Juta, South Africa Year: 2017 
• Contract farming in Ethiopia Editor: Gerrit Holtland Published by: AgriProFocus, the Netherlands Year: 2017 
• Documentary screening Desert Paradise (Impacts of large scale land acquisition in Gambella region, Ethiopia) Azeb Degife, Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich Screening: Friday, lunch break in the Brouwerskamer

Related:

13 Jun 2017. LANDac announced the release of a themed special issue, based on contributions from the LANDac Annual International Conference 2015, in the journal Geoforum.

The themed issue explores the “elusiveness of inclusive development” through analyses of empirical evidence on land grabbing ten years after the hype began. The cases collected show different types of investment flows into food and biofuel crops, wildlife, mining and city development in various developing regions, and analyse how different types of marginalized groups actually experience the flows of global capital in their local places – and search for a deeper understanding of the new and complex situations created under the banner of inclusive development in the context of landscape transformations triggered by large-scale land investment projects.