CFS Policy Convergence Products Database

Where appropriate, States may consider encouraging and facilitating land consolidation and land banks in environmental protection and infrastructure projects to facilitate the acquisition of private land for such public projects, and to provide affected owners, farmers and small-scale food producers with land in compensation that will allow them to continue, and even increase, production.

States should develop gender-sensitive policies and laws that provide for clear, transparent processes for restitution. Information on restitution procedures should be widely disseminated in applicable languages. Claimants should be provided with adequate assistance, including through legal and paralegal aid, throughout the process. States should ensure that restitution claims are promptly processed. Where necessary, successful claimants should be provided with support services so that they can enjoy their tenure rights and fulfil their duties. Progress of implementation should be widely [...]

Redistributive reforms can facilitate broad and equitable access to land and inclusive rural development. In this regard, where appropriate under national contexts, States may consider allocation of public land, voluntary and market based mechanisms as well as expropriation of private land, fisheries or forests for a public purpose.

Where possible, the original parcels or holdings should be returned to those who suffered the loss, or their heirs, by resolution of the competent national authorities. Where the original parcel or holding cannot be returned, states should provide prompt and just compensation in the form of money and/or alternative parcels or holdings, ensuring equitable treatment of all affected people.

Where appropriate, considering their national context, States should consider providing restitution for the loss of legitimate tenure rights to land, fisheries and forests. 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.

Where appropriate, the concerns of indigenous peoples regarding restitution should be addressed in the national context and in accordance with national law and legislation.

States should ensure that there is wide public participation in the development of planning proposals and the review of draft spatial plans to ensure that priorities and interests of communities, including indigenous peoples and food-producing communities, are reflected. Where necessary, communities should be provided with support during the planning process. Implementing agencies should disclose how public input from participation was reflected in the final spatial plans. States should endeavour to prevent corruption by establishing safeguards against improper use of spatial planning [...]

States should ensure that regulated spatial planning is conducted in a manner that recognizes the interconnected relationships between land, fisheries and forests and their uses, including the gendered aspects of their uses. States should strive towards reconciling and prioritizing public, community and private interests and accommodate the requirements for various uses, such as rural, agricultural, nomadic, urban and environmental. Spatial planning should consider all tenure rights, including overlapping and periodic rights. Appropriate risk assessments for spatial planning should be [...]

States should develop through consultation and participation, and publicize, gender-sensitive policies and laws on regulated spatial planning. Where appropriate, formal planning systems should consider methods of planning and territorial development used by indigenous peoples and other communities with customary tenure systems, and decision-making processes within those communities.

Regulated spatial planning affects tenure rights by legally constraining their use. States should conduct regulated spatial planning, and monitor and enforce compliance with those plans, including balanced and sustainable territorial development, in a way that promotes the objectives of these Guidelines. In this regard, spatial planning should reconcile and harmonize different objectives of the use of land, fisheries and forests.

States have the power to raise revenue through taxation related to tenure rights so as to contribute to the achievement of their broader social, economic and environmental objectives. These objectives may include encouraging investment or preventing undesirable impacts that may arise, such as from speculation and concentration of ownership or other tenure rights. Taxes should encourage socially, economically and environmentally desirable behaviour, such as registering transactions or declaring the full sale value.

States should administer taxes efficiently and transparently. Staff of implementing agencies should receive training that includes methodologies. Taxes should be based on appropriate values. Assessments of valuations and taxable amounts should be made public. States should provide taxpayers with a right to appeal against valuations. States should endeavour to prevent corruption in taxation administration, through increased transparency in the use of objectively assessed values.

Implementing agencies should make their valuation information and analyses available to the public in accordance with national standards. States should endeavour to prevent corruption in valuation through transparency of information and methodologies, in public resource administration and compensation, and in company accounts and lending.

States should strive to develop policies, laws and organizational frameworks for regulating all aspects pertaining to taxation of tenure rights. Tax policies and laws should be used where appropriate to provide for effective financing for decentralized levels of government and local provision of services and infrastructure.

States and other parties should develop and publicize national standards for valuation for governmental, commercial and other purposes. National standards should be consistent with relevant international standards. Training of staff should include methodologies and international standards.

Improve inclusiveness and ownership, particularly country ownership, of food security and nutrition policies and actions, by: i) Engaging, where possible, members of affected and at risk populations in decision-making; ii) Enabling informed decision-making by members of affected and at risk populations, by endeavouring to provide accessible and understandable information in a timely manner; iii) Promoting, following and strengthening accountability processes, and adequate, transparent and accessible feedback and complaint mechanisms, so that responses are continuously improved; iv) [...]

Mitigate the effects of natural and man-made disasters, adapt to climate change, and promote sustainable use of natural resources, by: i) Formulating and implementing policies and actions to help ensure that coping strategies and humanitarian and livelihood assistance do not contribute to the unsustainable use of natural resources; ii) Promoting fair, inclusive and non-discriminatory processes to discuss issues related to natural resource management and use by local populations, displaced persons, members of affected and at risk populations, vulnerable and marginalized groups, as well as [...]

Empower women and their organisations, promote equal rights and participation for women and men, girls and boys, and address challenges women and men of all ages face in protracted crises; ii) Strengthening and building on women's knowledge and capacities in the delivery and design of targeted projects, programmes gender inequalities, by: i) Identifying and analysing, with the use of sex and age disaggregated data, the different vulnerabilities and , and policy support, across all sectors; iii) Ensuring, and removing obstacles to, equal access for women to productive resources, [...]

Improve the targeting and design of context-specific policies and actions and enhance decision-making: i) Governments and other stakeholders should integrate comprehensive food security and nutrition analyses into broader poverty, gender and humanitarian assessments, and risk and vulnerability analyses; ii) Comprehensive analyses should ideally examine: ff the underlying determinants of food insecurity and malnutrition; ff the resilience and sustainability of livelihood strategies and food systems; ff the abilities of men, women and vulnerable groups to assure the food, nutrition and [...]

Promote effective and adequate financing to address the challenges of food security and nutrition in protracted crises, by: i) Supporting flexible, predictable and multi-year financing mechanisms for crisis-risk management and reduction activities that facilitate timely and more cost-effective responses; ii) Encouraging the development and use of innovative financing mechanisms, including those that release funds according to changes in early warning indicators or triggers; iii) Building strategic financing partnerships and synergies among different actors to underpin a holistic [...]

In situations of conflict and instability, address food insecurity and undernutrition in a conflict-sensitive manner and contribute to peacebuilding initiatives, by: i) Working to ensure that food security and nutrition related interventions do not exacerbate tensions or conflict; ii) Identifying opportunities to support and reinforce peace initiatives, particularly local initiatives, as elements of food security and nutrition related interventions, recognizing and promoting the roles of women in these interventions and in reconciliation and confidence building; iii) Working to ensure [...]

States should promote democracy, the rule of law, sustainable development and good governance, and promote and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms in order to empower individuals and civil society to make demands on their governments, devise policies that address their specific needs and ensure the accountability and transparency of governments and state decision-making processes in implementing such policies. States should, in particular, promote freedom of opinion and expression, freedom of information, freedom of the press and freedom of assembly and association, which [...]

Develop institutional and organisational capacities, by: i) Supporting, and strengthening local and national institutional and organisational capacities in a sustainable manner, and complementing them where needed, avoiding to create or reinforce dependency on international assistance; ii) Introducing policies and actions that fight corruption and fraudulent practices, in all their forms, when supporting food security and nutrition in protracted crises; iii) Rebuilding and supporting, where appropriate, informal and traditional institutions and organizations that help to foster [...]

States should promote and safeguard a free, democratic and just society in order to provide a peaceful, stable and enabling economic, social, political and cultural environment in which individuals can feed themselves and their families in freedom and dignity.

States should facilitate sustainable, non-discriminatory and secure access and utilization of resources consistent with their national law and with international law and protect the assets that are important for people's livelihoods. States should respect and protect the rights of individuals with respect to resources such as land, water, forests, fisheries and livestock without any discrimination. Where necessary and appropriate, States should carry out land reforms and other policy reforms consistent with their human rights obligations and in accordance with the rule of law in order to [...]

States are invited to consider, in accordance with their domestic legal and policy frameworks, whether to include provisions in their domestic law, which may include their constitutions, bills of rights or legislation, to directly implement the progressive realization of the right to adequate food. Administrative, quasi-judicial and judicial mechanisms to provide adequate, effective and prompt remedies accessible, in particular, to members of vulnerable groups may be envisaged

States should pay particular attention to the specific access problems of women and of vulnerable, marginalized and traditionally disadvantaged groups, including all persons affected by HIV/AIDS. States should take measures to protect all people affected by HIV/AIDS from losing their access to resources and assets.

Recognizing the primary responsibility of States for the progressive realization of the right to adequate food, States are encouraged to apply a multistakeholder approach to national food security to identify the roles of and involve all relevant stakeholders, encompassing civil society and the private sector, drawing together their know-how with a view to facilitating the efficient use of resources

States are invited to consider, in accordance with their domestic legal and policy frameworks, whether to include provisions in their domestic law, possibly including constitutional or legislative review that facilitates the progressive realization of the right to adequate food in the context of national food security.

States should take steps so that members of vulnerable groups can have access to opportunities and economic resources in order to participate fully and equally in the economy

States should take measures, where and if necessary, to develop, strengthen, implement and maintain effective anticorruption legislation and policies, including in the food sector and in the management of emergency food aid.

States should consider strengthening their domestic law and policies to accord access by women heads of households to poverty reduction and nutrition security programmes and projects

States that have established a right to adequate food under their legal system should inform the general public of all available rights and remedies to which they are entitled.

States should support higher education by strengthening developing country university and technical faculties of agriculture-related disciplines and business to carry out both education and research functions, and by engaging universities throughout the world in training developing country agriculturalists, scientists and businesspeople at the graduate and post-graduate levels

States should support investment in human resource development such as health, education, literacy and other skills training, which are essential to sustainable development, including agriculture, fisheries, forestry and rural development

States should encourage agricultural and environmental education at the primary and secondary levels in order to create a better awareness in new generations about the importance of conserving and making sustainable use of natural resources

States should implement measures to make people improve their housing conditions and their means for food preparation, because they are related to food safety. Such measures should be made in the educative and infrastructure fields, especially in rural households

States are reminded of the cultural values of dietary and eating habits in different cultures and should establish methods for promoting food safety, positive nutritional intake including fair distribution of food within communities and households with special emphasis on the needs and rights of both girls and boys, as well as pregnant women and lactating mothers, in all cultures.

States should provide information to individuals to strengthen their ability to participate in food-related policy decisions that may affect them, and to challenge decisions that threaten their rights

States should strengthen and broaden primary education opportunities, especially for girls, women and other underserved populations