ILC says the poor prone to land dispossessions

The report on Findings of the Global Commercial Pressures on Land Research Project by the International Land Coalition (ILC) has revealed that the poor and rural dwellers are more vulnerable to loss land to acquisitions.

ILC, a global alliance of civil society and intergovernmental organizations that work for the promotion of secured and equitable access to and control over land for poor women and men through advocacy, dialogue, knowledge sharing and capacity building.

In the report entitled ‘Land Rights and the Rush for Land’ made available to NaijaAgroNet, ILC looked into the land acquisition, means of acquisition and its effect on the economy and making small-scale farmers a priority of the findings.

The findings' report revealed that the high global demand for land is likely to continue for a long term even when the sudden increase that occurred between 2005 and 2008 may level off.

The prevailing model of large-scale land acquisition, the report says will jeopardize the land and resources rights and livelihoods of rural communities.

Recognizing the fact that poor governance doesn’t give the poor the opportunity to benefit from land acquisition, the report has it that women are more vulnerable to the inefficient benefit while the poor bore disproportionate costs.

According to ILC, the land owned traditionally by the public are vulnerable to loss as there are weak legal protection of their lands held under customary tenure, this makes the poor people prone to dispossessions.

The international organization also made known that international law is not properly put in place to work towards the protection of the poor as far as land acquisition is concern.

The report also affirmed that host governments are not taking sufficient action in a bid to limit the further impoverishment of rural communities.

NaijaAgroNet discovered that ILC called on concerned authorities and governments to stop dispossession and land allocations that are not in the interest of the public.

ILC, therefore called for the recognization of the right of the rural poor was also made to steer towards more equitable models that give a key role to existing land users.

'Yinka Awosanya

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