Rural International Civil Societies Cluster: Updates

The Rural and International Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) cluster of the GLTN has registered significant milestones in the third quarter of 2023 working as a collective entity, and as individual organizations within the Global Land Tool Network (GLTN). The activities implemented were agreed upon following the GLTN Partners meeting earlier this year in May (2nd- 4th May 2023), which also provided a platform for the election of cluster leads in line with the GLTN Charter. The Asian NGO Coalition for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ANGOC) and Huairou Commission (HC) were re-elected as co-leads of the rural cluster to serve for another two years. Among the list of achieved outputs are activities aimed at enhancing the visibility of addressing land conflicts in national and regional policies and programs. This year, six Asian countries will be involved in this initiative. As a preparatory step, ANGOC and the rural cluster organized a training and planning session on land conflict monitoring between 12-14 August 2023, in Bangkok, Thailand, in which thirteen (13) representatives actively participated to discuss and agree on the monitoring framework, the outline of the report, and the timeline. Currently, there is an ongoing data gathering from Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Nepal, and Philippines to inform the writing of the report. Additionally, between 15th and 16th August 2023, the cluster organized a workshop in the context of understanding the cross-cutting dimension of land with food security. This included preliminary work on the formulation of the cluster’s development agenda towards formulating policy recommendations and action program on the link of land tenure and food security. The event brought together fifteen (15) participants from eight countries. The draft summary workshop reports as well as the cluster agenda on land-food security are under development.

Partners from different organizations within the rural cluster pose for a photo during the workshop in Bangkok, August 2023

Between the 10th -11th October, the cluster, ANGOC and the Association for Land Reform and Development (ALRD), shall host a regional conference in Dhaka, Bangladesh on mainstreaming land rights in the narrative of climate change, in partnership with the Global Forum on Agricultural Research and Innovation (GFAR), and the Land Portal Foundation. The event aims to create greater understanding on the importance of land tenure rights in the climate change discourse. A Conference Declaration capturing the main conclusions and recommendations of the event will be produced and disseminated widely thereafter to promote the visibility of land tenure in the narrative of climate change. As for the other components of the 2023 work plan of cluster, various preparatory activities are being undertaken (e.g., development of concept note, drafting of gender strategy, etc.). The cluster aims to complete all activities by March 2024. Updates on the planned activities will be shared periodically on the GLTN website, Partners’ websites of and other media.