CFS Policy Convergence Products Database

States should consider the particular obstacles faced by women and girls with regard to tenure and associated tenure rights, and take measures to ensure that legal and policy frameworks provide adequate protection for women and that laws that recognize women's tenure rights are implemented and enforced. States should ensure that women can legally enter into contracts concerning tenure rights on the basis of equality with men and should strive to provide legal services and other assistance to enable women to defend their tenure interests.

Given that all human rights are universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated, the governance of tenure of land, fisheries and forests should not only take into account rights that are directly linked to access and use of land, fisheries and forests, but also all civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights. In doing so, States should respect and protect the civil and political rights of defenders of human rights, including the human rights of peasants, indigenous peoples, fishers, pastoralists and rural workers, and should observe their human rights obligations when [...]

States should provide access through impartial and competent judicial and administrative bodies to timely, affordable and effective means of resolving disputes over tenure rights, including alternative means of resolving such disputes, and should provide effective remedies, which may include a right of appeal, as appropriate. Such remedies should be promptly enforced and may include restitution, indemnity, compensation and reparation. States should strive to ensure that vulnerable and marginalized persons have access to such means, in line with paragraphs 6.6 and 21.6. States should [...]

States should place responsibilities at levels of government that can most effectively deliver services to the people. States should clearly define the roles and responsibilities of agencies dealing with tenure of land, fisheries and forests. States should ensure coordination between implementing agencies, as well as with local governments, and indigenous peoples and other communities with customary tenure systems.

States should develop relevant policies, laws and procedures through participatory processes involving all affected parties, ensuring that both men and women are included from the outset. Policies, laws and procedures should take into account the capacity to implement. They should incorporate gender-sensitive approaches, be clearly expressed in applicable languages, and widely publicized.

States should welcome and facilitate the participation of users of land, fisheries and forests in order to be fully involved in a participatory process of tenure governance, inter alia, formulation and implementation of policy and law and decisions on territorial development, as appropriate to the roles of State and non-state actors, and in line with national law and legislation.

States should provide and maintain policy, legal and organizational frameworks that promote responsible governance of tenure of land, fisheries and forests. These frameworks are dependent on, and are supported by, broader reforms to the legal system, public service and judicial authorities.

States should ensure that policy, legal and organizational frameworks for tenure governance are consistent with their existing obligations under national and international law, and with due regard to voluntary commitments under applicable regional and international instruments.

States should provide appropriate recognition and protection of the legitimate tenure rights of indigenous peoples and other communities with customary tenure systems, consistent with existing obligations under national and international law, and with due regard to voluntary commitments under applicable regional and international instruments. Such recognition should take into account the land, fisheries and forests that are used exclusively by a community and those that are shared, and respect the general principles of responsible governance. Information on any such recognition should be [...]

Indigenous peoples and other communities with customary tenure systems that exercise self-governance of land, fisheries and forests should promote and provide equitable, secure and sustainable rights to those resources, with special attention to the provision of equitable access for women. Effective participation of all members, men, women and youth, in decisions regarding their tenure systems should be promoted through their local or traditional institutions, including in the case of collective tenure systems. Where necessary, communities should be assisted to increase the capacity of [...]

States should ensure that all actions are consistent with their existing obligations under national and international law, and with due regard to voluntary commitments under applicable regional and international instruments. In the case of indigenous peoples, States should meet their relevant obligations and voluntary commitments to protect, promote and implement human rights, including as appropriate from the International Labour Organization Convention (No 169) concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries, the Convention on Biological Diversity and the United [...]

States should, in drafting tenure policies and laws, take into account the social, cultural, spiritual, economic and environmental values of land, fisheries and forests held under tenure systems of indigenous peoples and other communities with customary tenure systems. There should be full and effective participation of all members or representatives of affected communities, including vulnerable and marginalized members, when developing policies and laws related to tenure systems of indigenous peoples and other communities with customary tenure systems.

States should consider adapting their policy, legal and organizational frameworks to recognize tenure systems of indigenous peoples and other communities with customary tenure systems. Where constitutional or legal reforms strengthen the rights of women and place them in conflict with custom, all parties should cooperate to accommodate such changes in the customary tenure systems.

State and non-state actors should acknowledge that land, fisheries and forests have social, cultural, spiritual, economic, environmental and political value to indigenous peoples and other communities with customary tenure systems.

Where indigenous peoples and other communities with customary tenure systems have legitimate tenure rights to the ancestral lands on which they live, States should recognize and protect these rights. Indigenous peoples and other communities with customary tenure systems should not be forcibly evicted from such ancestral lands.

States should monitor the outcome of allocation programmes, including the gender-differentiated impacts on food security and poverty eradication as well as their impacts on social, economic and environmental objectives, and introduce corrective measures as required.

To the extent that resources permit, States should ensure that competent bodies responsible for land, fisheries and forests have the human, physical, financial and other forms of capacity. Where responsibilities for tenure governance are delegated, the recipients should receive training and other support so they can perform those responsibilities.

States should establish strategies for readjustment approaches that fit particular local requirements. Such strategies should be socially, economically and environmentally sustainable, and gender sensitive. Strategies should identify the principles and objectives of the readjustment approaches; the beneficiaries; and the development of capacity and knowledge in the public sector, the private sector, organizations of farmers and small-scale producers, of fishers, and of forest users, and academia. Laws should establish clear and cost-effective procedures for the reorganization of parcels [...]

States should establish appropriate safeguards in projects using readjustment approaches. Any individuals, communities or peoples likely to be affected by a project should be contacted and provided with sufficient information in applicable languages. Technical and legal support should be provided. Participatory and gender-sensitive approaches should be used taking into account rights of indigenous peoples. Environmental safeguards should be established to prevent or minimize degradation and loss of biodiversity and reward changes that foster good land management, best practices and [...]

Where fragmentation of smallholder family farms and forests into many parcels increases production costs, States may consider land consolidation and land banks to improve the structure of those farms and forests. States should refrain from using land consolidation where fragmentation provides benefits, such as risk reduction or crop diversification. Land consolidation projects to restructure farms should be integrated with support programmes for farmers, such as the rehabilitation of irrigation systems and local roads. Measures should be developed to protect the investment of land [...]