Workshop revived hope of good tenure practice

THE recent workshop on Voluntary Guidelines on Responsible Governance of Tenure (VGGT) of land, fisheries and forestry by the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform in conjunction with the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN has brought hope to the masses.

Officially endorsed by the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS) in 2012, the guidelines seek to promote tenure rights and equitable access to land, fisheries and forests as a means to eradicate hunger and poverty, and to support sustainable development and improving the environment.

Though voluntary, the guidelines are intended to act as a framework for all stakeholders to use when developing strategies, policies, legislation and programmes that influence good tenure practices on land, fisheries and forestry.

At a macro level the guidelines are catalysts with the potential to accelerate the undertaking by world leaders who vowed through the Mil- lennium Development Goals to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger by 2015.

Representatives of stakeholder organisations such as government, academia, civil society, the private sector and NGOs converged at the workshop, in Durban, to look at the guidelines to find common ground under which they may be implemented.

The underlying consensus emanating from the deliberations was that the guidelines need to be embedded in South African policy formulation to accelerate good tenure governance within the land, fisheries and forestry industries.

Immediate actions to be taken were identified which included building a civil society and grassroots campaign to enable marginalised groups to defend their legitimate tenure rights, drum up support from government to recognise, respect and safeguard tenure rights; assess current and proposed laws and policies against VGGT; create synergies in the implementation of the VGGT to Africa-wide initiatives such as a Land Policy Initiative to get more of the African governments’ buy-in; link the implementation of VGGT to ongoing national land policy and tenure reform processes; establish transparency initiatives for disclosure of (state) contracts and leases; restitution, redistribution and the allocation of land, fishing and forestry rights; and strategic partners in order to eradicate corruption in the governance of tenure of land, fisheries and forestry.

Other modalities to be undertaken in the next two years include convening a multi-stakeholder dialogue which will develop into the establishment of a national structure, develop a charter to hold all participants accountable; review existing South African policies to accommodate the implementation of the VGGT; and raise awareness about the VGGTs in government, its relevant departments and the general public. THEMBA MZULA HLEKO Rosslyn