Inaugural Conference on Land Policy in Africa Held in Addis Ababa

The inaugural Conference on Land Policy inAfrica concluded on Friday 14 November 2014 after three full days of presentations and discussions at African Union (AU) headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Themed "The next decade of land policy in Africa: ensuring agricultural development and inclusive growth," the Conference brought together parliamentarians, ministers, practitioners, academics, community representatives and other stakeholders to discuss the issue of land in Africa. The Conference was organized by the Land Policy Initiative, which is a joint programme of the African Union Commission (AUC), the African Development Bank (AfDB) and United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA). Natural Justice attended the Conference with the support of the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies.

While numerous issues were discussed, from global initiatives to national land policy reform to customary tenure systems, three key themes were raised throughout the Conference: implementation of guidelines and policies; customary tenure; and information dissemination.

AU Access and Benefit Sharing Policy Frameworks and Guidelines Ready for Adoption

Gino Cocchiaro, Natural Justice, took part in the Validation Workshop on the AU Guidelines  for the Coordinated Implementation of the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing from the 11th to the 14th of August in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The workshop was attended by African government representatives, experts on access and benefit sharing, indigenous people and local community representatives.

The workshop produced a final policy framework and guidelines on access and benefit sharing, which will both be presented to the The African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN) for adoption. Natural Justice provided assistance to the indigenous people and local community representatives attending the meeting to ensure that the text adequately reflected their calls for recognition of their customary laws, community protocols and procedures.

ABS Initiative Team Meeting

From 4-5 March 2013, the ABS Capacity Development Initiative held a team meeting in Phalaborwa, South Africa following the 7th Pan-African ABS Workshop attended by Lassana Kone and Gino Cocchiaro of Natural Justice. The objectives of the meeting were to identify new thematic areas and to provide support to specific countries in the development and implementation of ABS regulations. The team agreed to support the establishment of the argan value chain in Morocco. Ratification, overall ABS strategy, regulatory framework, institutional arrangements, value chain development, dealing with Traditional Knowledge (TK), transboundary issues and stakeholder involvement were among the themes discussed. In terms of the existing tools, the team agreed to raise awareness for national researchers, but also to develop new standardised tools. Tools like biocultural community protocols (BCPs) will be use for the Training of Trainers at the local level and provide legal and commercial advice on Mutually Agreed Terms (MAT) and Prior Informed Consent (PIC). 

With regard to BCPs, a thematic group discussed the way forward and stressed the need to target BCPs in the context of ABS and integrate the work on value chains and biotrade with BCPs, with a specific emphasis on dialogue and business potential for genetic resources. The group further discussed the value of BCPs in cases where many communities share a resource, like the Shea in Ghana or Argan in Morocco. In this case it is not possible to involve only one community but a whole range of community. The Multi-Stakeholder Process (MSP) could be a tool to bring every community under the same umbrella. The group agreed that the next generation of BCPs should strengthen the notion of co-users of resources and use MSPs to secure the use of resources, facilitate and introduce community involvement in regulation, outline how can focal points support BCPs or similar procedures, and support legislation/regulation development. 

Regarding the draft AU guidelines on ABS, Natural Justice agreed to produce an annex to the Guidelines on good principles for community involvement.