Legal Empowerment in Practice. Using Legal Tools to Secure Land Rights in Africa
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Land lies at the heart of social, political and economic life in much of rural Africa. It provides a major source of livelihoods, income and employment; a basis for social and political relations; and has major historical, cultural and spiritual significance. In many places, rapid socio-economic changes are undermining the security of land access for poorer and more vulnerable groups – particularly in high-value lands such as peri-urban areas, irrigated schemes and fertile lands. Securing land a ccess for these groups is important in providing economic opportunities and/or social safety nets, as well as addressing broader issues of governance, equity, environmental sustainability and social identity. Recent years have witnessed growing interest and debates about legal empowerment as a strategy for securing land rights in Africa. Legal empowerment has featured high on the international development agenda – as evidenced by the establishment of a UN-hosted Commission on Legal Empowerment o f the Poor. IIED, FAO and the Law Faculty of the University of Ghana jointly organised an international workshop to allow practitioners to exchange their experience and share the lessons learned, and to feed insights from the wealth of innovation on the ground into international processes. The workshop took place in Accra on the 13th and 14th of March 2008, bringing together some 25 practitioners from different parts of Africa, as well as a few practitioners and researchers from international in stitutions and Europe. Workshop participants shared a broad range of approaches, tools and methods for legal empowerment.