|
PLATFORM UPDATE
20 December 2019
|
SEASON’S GREETINGSAnother vibrant, productive and exciting year is coming to a close
At the close of another vibrant, productive and exciting year, we would like to thank all of you for your support and always motivating cooperation throughout 2019. We send you our best wishes for a happy and healthy holiday season and look very much forward to leading the Global Donor Platform together with you in a new phase starting in 2020. WEBLINK2019 CONFERENCE ON LAND POLICY IN AFRICASecuring effective land tenure necessary for Africa’s development
The 2019 Conference on Land Policy in Africa on 25 November in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, focused on combating corruption in the land sector and sustainable pathways for Africa’s transformation. Securing land tenure through good governance is critical in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), whose global success, is underpinned by good land governance, as it contributes to eliminating poverty and hunger; promoting sustainable agriculture; advancing gender equality and women empowerment; and promoting inclusive economic growth; among other development objectives. The 3rd edition of the high-level, five-day biennial conference took place in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, from 24-29 November and was jointly organized by the African Union (AU), the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), and the African Development Bank (AfDB), the latter being a member of the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development. The subtitle of this year’s CLPA, “Winning the fight against corruption in the land sector: Sustainable pathways for Africa’s transformation”, placed corruption front and centre as the major obstacle hindering secure land tenure, and therefore sustainable development in Africa. “Corruption in the land sector can inhibit the ability for people to access and own land, which in turn can marginalize some sectors of society thereby undermining their livelihoods and perpetuating conflicts, hunger and poverty”, said Ambassador Josefa Sacko, the African Union Commission’s Commissioner for Rural Economy and Agriculture. Sacko stressed that in order to fight corruption, a more equitable distribution of and accessibility to land must be ensured, especially for women, youths and other vulnerable groups. One plenary session was dedicated to women’s land tenure security in the face of corruption. The various discussions at the CLPA highlighted the fact that corrupt practices in land administration and management takes many forms, including bribery, illicit land transactions, sexual extortion, the exclusion of communities from dealings on their land, unaccountable land planning that allows for speculation to take place, unfairly compensating evicted people for their land, and practices that deny land rights to women and youth. In addition to the need to increase land tenure for women and other marginalized groups, traditional land tenure systems were examined. Traditional leaders from across the continent present at the CLAP called for the old dichotomy between customary and modern land tenure systems to be removed, and for there to be a better understanding and practice of how to merge the two together. WEBLINK
VGGT IMPLEMENTATION IN AFRICACapitalising and disseminating impact
Experiences in implementing the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (VGGTs) from several African countries were shared during a side event held by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations at the 2019 Conference on Land Policy in Africa (CLPA). FAO, a member of the Global Donor Platform’s Working Group on Land, moderated the session that displayed how state and non-state actors from various African countries, including Sierra Leone, Namibia, and Kenya were able to take advantage of the VGGTs. The VGGTs provide a framework and stepwise approach for improving the governance of land tenure. The question and answer session stimulated engaging discussions that were continued in the hallways after the side event was finished, demonstrating the ability of the event to increase awareness on the application of VGGTs to improve the governance of land tenure and share unique perspectives on lessons and experiences in the implementation of VGGTs. WEBLINK
NETWORK OF EXCELLENCE ON LAND GOVERNANCE IN AFRICABuilding the next generation of African experts in land governance
To contribute to capacity development of land professionals in Africa, the African Land Policy Centre (ALPC) has established the Network of Excellence on Land Governance in Africa (NELGA). The network, which consists of fifty partners from leading African universities and research institutions, has developed a short-term course that focusses on “The Political Economy of Land Governance in Africa" in partnership with the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) at the University of Western Cape. NELGA operates in cooperation with Global Donor Platform members, GIZ and the World Bank, and with financial support from BMZ. The NELGA course is developed from a comprehensive assessment of what is needed in terms of developing land professionals in Africa. The focus on political economy of land governance reflects the contextual reality of land governance in Africa. Participants of the course are selected from a wide range of nationalities, educational backgrounds, and professional fields. To date, ninety-five students from twenty-six African countries have graduated from this short-course. WEBLINK
LAND GOVERNANCE RESEARCHYoung Africans at the forefront As leaders of tomorrow, youth play a crucial role in shaping a transformative land governance sector. To highlight their significant contributions to national and regional efforts to address land governance related issues, a side event at the 2019 Conference for Land Policy in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire presented the work of five young researchers in a wide range of topics, including youth’s land right, land disputes and resolutions, and environmental impacts of large-scale land Investments. In the highly interactive session, case studies from Burkina Faso, Ghana, Rwanda and Nigeria were discussed. WEBLINK
TRADE AND INVEST IN ONE AFRICAThe 2019 World Export and Development Forum
The 2019 World Export Development Forum (WEDF) brought together more than 1,000 business leaders, policymakers, and young entrepreneurs from over 100 countries who convened in Addis Ababa to better exploit the opportunities for growth through trade. The Forum’s theme this year was “Trade and Invest in One Africa” and was co-hosted by the Global Donor Platform member, International Trade Centre (ITC), the Ministry of Trade and Industry of Ethiopia, and the African Union Commission. It took place on 19–21 November in conjunction with the Africa Industrialisation Week. The conference was opened by Ethiopia’s President, Ms. Sahle-Work Zewde, who referred to the African continent’s immense economic potential that is poised to firmly mark its participation in the global trade arena. “We are transitioning into an era where Africa is becoming a key player in global trade, investment, and industrialization in contrast to its past marginal role. Currently, Africa has become a top destination for international investments and has been gaining ground as a major trading partner”, Zewde said. Albert M. Muchanga, Commissioner for Trade and Industry at the African Union, called for the creation of a more enabling environment to boost access to finance, competitiveness, and innovation. In this regard, the private sector will be the key driver of industrialisation. Efforts are being leveraged to provide a large market space through the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), he said. The message is to position the African industry to supply the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) market. Participants at the WEDF engaged with one another in different panel discussions, which provided valuable networking and business opportunities. The Forum consisted of a variety of events, including the SheTrades global platform, which focuses on innovative solutions for women’s empowerment through trade within the African Continental Free Trade Area. SheTrades event attracted more than 500 women entrepreneurs, business leaders, and policymakers to explore opportunities to better include women in trade. Arancha González, ITC’s Executive Director, emphasized that the AfCFTA has the potential to change the trading landscape of Africa and boost intra-Africa trade by more than 50%. However, if policies are going to work, they need to work for everyone – and that particularly includes women. She called for an AfCFTA that works for women. The YES! Forum provided a platform for stakeholders involved in the areas of creating decent jobs for youth and youth entrepreneurship and self-employment to engage, share experiences, innovations, and opportunities for scalable action. Another highlight of the forum was the Young Social Entrepreneurs Pitching Competition that involved social start-ups from Cameroon, Ethiopia and Guinea, who competed for the grand prize of US$5,000 in seed funding provided by ITC. The forum also featured different business-to-business matchmaking meetings that brought together agribusiness companies of all sizes from across the globe focused on fruits, vegetables, meat, cereals, dairy, tea, coffee, spices, agro-processing technologies and packaging solutions. Participants engaged in “speed workshops” to build business skills, with topics ranging from marketing and social media, to e-commerce, packaging, and finance. The matchmaking meetings involved 300 companies from 30 countries and participants held over 1,000 business-to-business meetings that generated business leads worth an estimated US$6-$14 million over the four days of the forum. WEBLINK
RURAL YOUTH AND DECENT JOBS CREATION IN FOOD SYSTEMSThe youthful future of African agribusiness
“Rural youth and decent jobs creation in food systems" was the title of the side event organised by Global Donor Platform for Rural Development’s Rural Youth Thematic Working Group held on 19 November at the Ethiopian Skylight Hotel in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The half-day event attracted a variety of practitioners, including representatives from the Embassy of Finland, AgriProFocus, ICCO- cooperation, IFAD, the United Nations World Food Programme, the Digital Rogue Society Experiment Group, NIRAS AgroBIg, World Vision, Plan International, ASDA, the French Embassy in Ethiopia, MEAE France and UN-Habitat/GLTN. The key role, however, was played by twelve young agripreneurs from Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Niger, Chad, Zambia, Botswana and Cameroon, who shared experiences about their everyday professional lives and highlighted the challenges and needs of making a living in rural areas. The side event was organized back-to-back to the Youth Entrepreneurship and Self-Employment (YES!) Forum 2019 along the side-lines of the World Export Development Forum (WEDF) and the Africa Industrialization Week (18 – 22 November), which was also held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. France’s Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs (MEAE), a Global Donor Platform member provided funding for the event, which in turn inputted the major results of the discussions with young African agripreneurs and donors directly to the YES! Forum, which took place one day later at African Union headquarters and attracted hundreds of participants. In his keynote address, Emmanuel Besnier, Deputy Head of Mission of the Embassy of France in Ethiopia, affirmed that France is committed to sharing in the mobilization to fight against hunger and poverty experienced by young people in rural areas, and is dedicated to creating decent employment them. Besnier added that the side event fully resonates with the fourth objective of the new French strategy for Food, Nutrition, and Sustainable Agriculture: Support the structuring of sustainable agri-food sectors to promote the creation of decent jobs in rural areas, particularly for youth. The strategy sets the guidelines for all of France's international development actions. Presentations by the Platform Secretariat and by Platform members France and FAO as well as by UN Habitat informed on ongoing activities in the different organisations related with rural youth. The event also featured a panel discussion that brought together different panellists including youth representatives and development partners and practitioners. In the following breakout session, participants held roundtable discussions on different areas affecting decent job creation for rural youth. They developed concrete ideas on four topics:
The eye-level discussions with youth representatives helped donor representatives and practitioners from implementing organisations gain first-hand insight on the experiences of youth in different country situations and allowed them to understand what type of interventions would be appropriate to address the issues raised. For example, participants talked about equipping youth with various skills and noted that there is a big difference between education systems, youth interests, and aspiration. There was a consensus that youth also need to develop personal and business skills, not only production skills. WEBLINK
A BIG “YES” TO YOUTH ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND SELF-EMPLOYMENTEthiopia hosted the second edition of the YES! Forum
On 20 November, the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia hosted the second edition of The Youth Entrepreneurship and Self-Employment Forum (YES! Forum). The event built upon the first forum held in Dakar in 2018 to support youth entrepreneurship and self-employment, particularly in the context of the African Continental Free Trade Area (ACFTA) agreement. Several hundred young entrepreneurs and agripreneurs from all over Africa attended the event. The YES! Forum was a featured event of the Global Entrepreneurship Week. This second edition of the forum was held as a pre-event of the World Export Development Forum, on 20 November 2019 at the African Union Headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The event was co-organized by the African Union in partnership with the Global Initiative on Decent Jobs for Youth: International Labour Organization (ILO), the International Trade Centre (ITC), the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), in collaboration with the Government of Ethiopia and an ecosystem of enterprise development agencies, incubators, accelerators, tech hubs, youth associations, and financial service providers. The YES! Forum aimed at providing a platform for stakeholders involved in decent jobs for youth, particularly in the area of youth entrepreneurship and self-employment to engage and share experiences, innovations, and opportunities for scaled action. Youth entrepreneurship and self-employment foster local innovation and improve the resilience of young people in the job market, as they encourage young people to find new business solutions to social, economic, and environmental challenges. The full-day event had various sessions that looked at the potential of agripreneurship and challenging environments or aspects, with engaging titles like: Scaling up Partnerships for Decent Jobs for Youth; The Role of Skills in Enterprise Development and Trade; Building up Institutional Ecosystems for Start-Ups; Sports for Development and Youth Economic Inclusiveness; and Best Practices in Investing in Youth Entrepreneurship. WEBLINK
INFOGRAPHIC OF THE MONTHStrengthening women’s land rights
Although women make up an estimated 43 percent of the global agricultural labor force, women own less land and have less secure land rights than men. The growing evidence on the direct relationship between women’s land rights and poverty reduction has become the basis for various interventions aimed at addressing this gap. Many grassroots and civil society organization, government officials, academics, and researchers have committed to securing and strengthening women’s land rights in many parts of the worlds. WEBLINKPEER-TO-PEER LEARNING:Autumn Webinar Series: See the full documentation of the series The Platform has completed the 4th part of its Autumn 2019 Webinar Series with an insightful presentation and discussion. The virtual events, launched in September, convened participants from development cooperation agencies and academia with a wide range of expertise and generated critical discussions in the context of agriculture and rural development. Thank you for your participation and contribution to the discussions! If you missed the sessions or would like to revisit the materials, make sure to access the recording, presentation material, and report on the Platform’s website by clicking on the corresponding links:
MEMBERS AND PARTNERS STRATEGIES, PUBLICATIONS AND EVENTSNEW PUBLICATIONS
UN DECADE OF FAMILY FARMING (2019–2028) – GLOBAL ACTION PLAN
GLOBAL LAND TOOL NETWORK GENDER STRATEGY (2019–2030)
NEW INTERNATIONAL STRATEGY EVENTS
Fri 3–5 January 2020 | Gujarat, India The ADF Tech Expo will be held in Gujarat, India from 3–5 January 2020. It is an exhibition cum knowledge-sharing platform for agriculture inputs, dairy, and food processing Technology as well as a B2B endeavor to facilitate strategic partnerships and provide a platform to entrepreneurs and innovators.
Thu 16–18 January 2020 | Berlin, Germany
The GFFA is an international conference on agri-food policy issues. Over three days at the GFFA, approx. 2,000 international visitors from politics, industry, science and civil society discuss the key topic “Food for all! Trade for Secure, Diverse and Sustainable Nutrition”.
Tue 21–24 January | Davos, Switzerland The World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos-Klosters is the foremost creative force for engaging the world’s top leaders in collaborative activities to shape the global, regional and industry agendas at the beginning of each year. In this regard, the Forum’s mission – improving the state of the world – guides the design and development of the Annual Meeting objectives. Participants will come together at the Annual Meeting to address the most pressing issues on the global agenda. They will do so in an exceptional atmosphere and in the “Spirit of Davos”, featuring interdisciplinary, informal and direct interaction among peers.
Mon 17–20 February 2020 | Thimphu, Bhutan The FAO Regional Conference is traditionally a forum to address current and emerging regional trends and challenges. Its 35th session will be an opportunity to highlight examples of innovation and digital technologies that are helping to improve food security and nutrition across the region.
Sun 23–28 February 2020 | Davos, Switzerland First of its kind, the World Biodiversity Forum will bring together leading researchers, practitioners, representatives from different sectors, policy-makers and societal actors to shape the future of biodiversity. The forum will provide a platform for exchange, covering a wide range of perspectives, and capturing a diversity of visions. With this, it aims to redefine and set the agenda for biodiversity as a focal point over the next 10 years in current themes and topics across sectors.
Mon 24–28 February 2020 | Kunming, China The second meeting of the Open-ended Working Group on the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework will convene to advance preparations for the development of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework. The negotiating process will culminate in the adoption of a post-2020 global biodiversity framework by the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, at the UN Biodiversity Conference in 2020.
Wed 26–28 February 2020 | Singapore AESCON (Asia-Europe Sustainable Connectivity) is the first scientific conference on Asia-Europe sustainable connectivity, bringing together researchers and policy analysts working in the field of international connectivity, globalization and their impacts on sustainable development, with a focus on Asia-Europe connections. ABOUT USVirtual Board Meeting The Platform held its last Board Meeting in 2019 on 10 December. The Meeting Minutes will be available in the download section early in the New Year. New focal points
J. Chris Toe, Senior Advisor for Corporate and Country Strategic Engagement, is the World Food Programme’s new focal point. Secretariat staff changes
Marion Thompson, the Secretariat’s Finance Officer for many years, will retire on 31 December. |
|
