Critical Reflection on ‘Land Grabbing’ in Fragile and Conflict-Affected Contexts
Publisher: A. Graf, C. Kruckow and S. Gemperle (KOFF, FriEnt)
Date: 2013
Topics: Land, Renewable Resources
Countries: Cambodia
This roundtable on conflict sensitive water and land management assembled representatives of Swiss civil society and state agencies. They debated the implications of land acquisition on their work as well as their responses. The event featured the two country cases of Ethiopia and Cambodia, where negative consequences of land acquisitions on development and social peace are particularly prevalent. Moreover, the participants discussed to what extent the newly developed FAO Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests (hereafter: FAO VG on Tenure) are a useful tool to confront the negative consequences of land acquisitions in these and other country contexts. This report picks out some of the main issues discussed at the roundtable, adds some further thoughts of the authors and refers to a limited number of additional sources. The first section looks at the two most prominent ways in which adverse effects of land acquisitions are addressed: support-ing land titling processes and advocacy. The second session reflects the debates on the potential of the FAO VG on Tenure as a tool to fostering sus-tainable land and water management.