 by most of us as the VGGT. My name is Daryl Vogan. I'm a land tenure consultant and it's my pleasure to welcome you to the event today. Before we get started, I want to mention that this webinar is being interpreted and available in both English and French. Both will be provided. If you want to access the interpretation function, you can see directions on your screen. Essentially, click the interpretation button at the bottom of the screen and then select the language that you wish to use. So a brief overview of how we got to where we are today and what we're going to talk about. Over the past nine years, FAO has led this $15 million project on supporting implementation of the VGGT. The project has helped countries make political commitments towards the eradication of hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition. This is an objective of increasing awareness among decision makers, development partners, and society at large regarding access to natural resources. The project enhanced global processes to improve the governance of tenure through collaborative partnerships for longer lasting impacts while promoting the application of VGGT capacity development, tools, and materials. This initiative addressed tenure rights of vulnerable groups, gender equality, conflict prevention, increased participation, and multi-stakeholder processes. The geographical coverage of the project included countries in regions in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. As many of you have seen for the past few weeks, FAO and the LAN portal held an online discussion to facilitate the collection of knowledge generated experiences and lessons learned during the project. We now have the opportunity in this webinar to learn more about some of these experiences and some of that learning. As you know from your registration, today's event will focus on project activities in Asia and East Africa. Now a brief overview of the agenda before we start the program. First there will be some opening remarks from one of our friends at FAO, followed by overviews of some of the activities in the Mekong region and then in Africa. We'll then move on to our first panel discussion featuring some of those directly involved in project activities in those regions and that will be followed by a question and answer session. We'll then go to a short break and when we come back we will have two presentations on integrating the VGGT into the UN convention to combat desertification and again there will be an opportunity for Q&A. We'll then have some key takeaways from the webinar and then close out the session. Now before I turn it over to our first speaker, I'd like to mention that for those of you who may have questions during the webinar and I'm sure there will be many, please use the Q&A function in Zoom which you'll find at the bottom of your Zoom screen. It will work much better if you use that function rather than the chat. We may not see all of your questions in the chat function. So with that and without further ado I would like to hand it over to Adriano Campolina of FAO for his opening remarks. Thanks very much. Thank you very much Dario and good morning and good afternoon colleagues. It's a great pleasure to be here. My name is Adriano Campolina. I am the team leader for the land tenure team in FAO and it is such a humbling experience to be among all this wealth of experience on land tenure issues. It's really a great pleasure to be with you and I'm looking forward to learn from your experience. Following the endorsement of the VGGT in 2012 FAO was mandated by the CFS to lead and promote the implementation. To achieve this FAO formulated a global project with the objective of helping countries make explicit political commitments and allocate resources to eradicate hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition. The project supporting implementation of the voluntary guidelines on the responsible governance of tenure of land, fisheries and forests was aimed at enhancing global processes to improve governance of tenure to build the capacity to improve governance of tenure in countries and regions by providing targeted technical assistance to countries through a focused and thematic approach. The implementation of the project was supported by donor funding from Switzerland, Italy, France, Belgium and Sweden who are joining us to celebrate this nine-year journey that would not have been possible without that. The geographical coverage of the project was global including countries in Latin America, Africa, Asia where the project addressed various tenure related challenges. One of the key areas that the project focused on was awareness raising on the VGGT through well-designed series of national workshops and participation of FAO at conferences and other flagship events around the world. This created a critical mess of informed change agents who included lawmakers, policymakers, civil society leaders, academia and producer organizations and indigenous communities across the world. The VGGT became an important global reference document for tenure governance among parliamentarians at country and regional levels influencing the design of regional interventions to achieve food and nutrition security. As a result of the awareness raising, VGGT uptake has been unprecedented since the endorsement. The demand for the application has been growing from year to year. The project also embarked on production and dissemination of VGGT capacity development tools in the form of technical guides and tool kits, e-learning modules and learning programs. The 90-year period of VGGT implementation has resulted in the production of over 12 VGGT technical guides covering various thematic areas of tenure governance including gender in land governance, FPIC, land-based investments, recording of tenure rights, valuations, special plan and governance of partial tenure. The VGGT values technical guides, learning programs and tools have also been translating to various languages and popular versions have been developed to facilitate the application and contextualization. Establishing and strengthening partnerships to increase collaborative action at global, regional and country levels was yet another strategy for the project. For example, in Africa, the project partnered with the African Union to promote the implementation of the VGGT in coherence with the African Union framework and guidelines for land policy in Africa. Today, we have the opportunity to hear first-hand accounts of the experiences in implementing the VGGT from project implementers from Africa and Asia. Today's event, which brings together project implementers and other stakeholders from African Asia, Macon Region, provides opportunity for experience sharing, lessons learning and reflecting on the achievements of the project and how these achievements could be sustained for less than impact. The experts from Africa who have been applying the VGGT in the context of the African Union framework and guidelines will also shed light on this unique approach and partnership and how it has benefited tenure governance in the jurisdictions. The experts will cover various aspects of VGGT implementation including safeguarding customary land rights and facilitating responsible land-based investments. During the deliberations, we also expect to have an open discussion that to identify the strengths and weaknesses of VGGT implementation over the past nine years and make concrete recommendations for future designs of VGGT interventions at country and regional levels. The nine-year journey that we have traveled has revealed that the demand for VGGT implementation has significantly increased and the demand to integrate VGGT with all the natural resource governance frameworks has also been on the increase. VGGT application modalities are destined for exciting innovation which will call for creative design of future programs. For example, climate change and emerging crisis that will call for innovation in the design of land governance interventions with a recognition that weak tenure security reduce resilience of people to natural disasters and effects of climate change. It is my hope that the outcome of this webinar is the beginning of another exciting journey which will not be complete without the critical mass of informed stakeholders that we have today. The future we build on the achievements of these initial years and will to a greater extent rely on the availability of our donors to support this process so that responsible governance of land and all the natural resources can continue to play its central role in poverty alleviation, eradication of hunger and malnutrition, social economic development, peace and stability and environmental sustainability. Let me conclude my opening remarks by saying a really huge and heartfelt thank you to the colleagues both at country level and at partners that have worked so strongly to advance the VGGT. I am extremely proud to lead this team of very committed professionals that have done a outstanding work on the past nine years. So let me conclude by saying thank you to the land tenure team of FAO and thank you to each one of the land tenure practitioners that are attending today. I wish you a very good thank you Adriano much appreciated for those opening remarks. I would now like to turn the program over to Luisa Janssen of FAO who will talk tell us about activities in the Mekong region. Luisa. Thank you Daryl and welcome to everyone. It's a pleasure to be able to get an overview of the activities in the Mekong region. Let me start by first introducing myself. Land tenure officer working under this program and related cross found projects in Africa and Asia and especially in the Mekong region in Asia and that's the work that I'm going to present today. I would also like to emphasize that this work is carried out in close cooperation with the regional office for Asia and the Pacific and with my colleague Mariana Vietieri. So what I'm going to present is our joint work in the region. I will start with sharing my screen. It will take some time before we see it in presentation mode but here it is. Oh sorry. So in the Mekong region we have really been trying to embed responsible governance of tenure at national and regional level and as I said already this is a work that has been fully integrated with the work at the regional level but I also would like to stress that the country offices in the four countries made a pivotal role together with all the partners of the countries that we work with. So let me start by showing how this presentation is structured. It will begin with where it really starts with the work in the Mekong region. Then I will present the results at country level first by introducing the overall approach that was used in the four countries. Then I will turn to the results at regional level and I will finish with where are we now working on the chief and what is the way forward. So it's important for understanding the work in the Mekong region to understand that the voluntary guidelines were translated into four national languages as shown here in the slide. This greatly facilitated working in the Mekong region where English is not always a common language or any of the other languages as used by the UN system. So where did we start? Well this basically started with examining complementarities with the Mekong region land governance project. So already well before the start of this project especially its second phase. In 2015 we already started to collaborate with the MRLG especially at the regional consultation and planning workshop that was held in Bangkok in March 2015 where we discussed windows of opportunities in the four countries to start mainstreaming voluntary guidelines into other work and the MRLG also set the scene with an analysis of the political economy of land governance in the four country which was very helpful for the work that we also did because this provided a general overview of the issues in each of the countries. In the same year Mariana organized a regional welfare stakeholder consultation for a whole group of countries in Asia in the Pacific and the four countries of the Mekong were part of this regional consultation. In 2016 we participated in the first Mekong region land forum that was held in Hanoi and in which one of our partners also played a pivotal role in the organization. Our info I will come to that later. And at the end of the year we were actually invited to become a member of the MRLG advisory council that provides guidance and advice to the projects community of the MRLG project which we accepted. So all of these activities led to the development of a concept note in which FAO had formulated a workflow program to complement and strengthen the MRLG project and this was approved in October 2017 after which operational activities in the four countries started. So let me now turn to the results at national level and this is really about support to strengthen national policy, legal and organizational frameworks and coordination mechanisms. But first of all it's important to understand our overall approach in the Mekong region. So FAO has an added advantage and a number of dedicated fields of work and here I show you four closely intertwined and interacting aspects that are part of FAO's where FAO can add value. So this concerns awareness raising for common understanding, multi-stakeholder processes and platforms but also system-wide capacity development of change agents and national policy and laws. All of this especially also when they are working at the same time and really linked to one another helped to create an enabling environment for responsible governance of tenure and it's important of course once it is created that you also maintain this enabling environment. And this all contributed to the overarching program objective as shown on the right side of the slide here. So this whole approach is described in much more detail in a paper that Petri Kalas might now be hearing about in Lenz's policy. So if you're interested in more details please you are invited to read the article. So it's important to keep this overall approach in mind when I'm describing the activities in four countries. Now let me go in that order first to Cambodia where the support was related to the administration from nature conservation and protection. So also here we started with national multi-stakeholder awareness raising so combining already two of the elements of the approach and we did also a capacity analysis workshop that formed the baseline for further activities in the country and this was organized by FAO and the General Director of Administration for Nature Conservation and Protection of the Ministry of Environment that became our key partner for implementation of activities in Cambodia. One of the outcomes of the capacity analysis was the need to strengthen capacities on gender. So we also did a intensive workshop on that subject in February 2020 actually just before the COVID lockdown. But in the meantime we had also made a contribution to national dialogue by contributing to a meeting organized by Action 8. We had a smaller workshop on the implementation process especially with government and academia and the academia were very interested in using the public goods produced under this project. And with LONDESSA we had also intended to organize a salt salt exchange between Myanmar and Cambodia but we had to cancel this because of the COVID pandemic and instead we organized the online regional exchange in December last year. So at the bottom there's a document shown that was prepared on customary tenure which is one of the key subjects on which all the work are concentrated and this also was input to the various activities. In Cambodia we provided specific technical assistance, a delegation from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction participated in the FIG working week that was held in Hanoi in April 2019 where they had the chance to learn from experiences not only south-south but also north-south and this was much appreciated by the participants. We also published a bilingual glossary, the ABC of LEN TANYA key terms and their meaning in English and Cambodian language or queer and this would help not only the Ministry with which we'll work but also for example the academia and persons lecturing in creating a better understanding of the terminology as used in the voluntary guidelines of how this would translate to Cambodian language and would help in raising more awareness and create better understanding in how to work with the voluntary guidelines. Furthermore we also translated five technical guides for the general director of administration for major conservation and protection as shown here at the bottom and all these publications are available online at Ethno's website. Now let's turn to the next country, Laos People's Democratic Republic, where the support was centered to the 2019 land law process and subsequent sub-decrease. So here the approach was slightly different because we didn't really start with awareness raising on multi-stakeholder processes but we immediately were asked to provide technical assistance to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment for the land law process and this request was received in 2017 in which we were able also making use of other funding to field international consultants to work together with the land info working group in providing inputs into the land law drafting process and these inputs were a set of recommendations that the whole group was supporting. This also led to a follow-up mission in October 2018. Then after the adoption of this particular law FAO was asked to continue to provide technical assistance to the Ministry and especially the Department of Land on revision of force sub-decrease and this work was also conducted or is being conducted actually together with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and the sub-decrease are on the subject of issuing land titles, pedestrian survey and mapping, land registration and land valuation systems and this is ongoing and our support will finish by the end of the month but the work force will continue. One of the things that we did do and is comparable to some of the activities in the other three countries is that we rolled out a learning program to strengthen the capacities of government officials and the subject was safeguarding land tenure rights in the context of every culture investments and every prior and in full consent and that happened from October 2018 until January 2019 and it's also very much related to the work on the land law and the sub-decrease because land-based investments is a hot topic in the country and creating capacities in order to do this in a responsible manner will contribute to the overall objective of responsible governance of tenure in the country. So here the emphasis was really on technical assistance in the country and we I should also mention that the technical assistance although it is centered on land law and related to land issues was also in close connection with forestry and together with the forestry colleagues. Now let me turn to Myanmar with a different story from the other three countries. Near the support was geared to the national land use policy process and the subsequent national land law drafting process. So here looking at the same approach we started much earlier because we already start with work in Myanmar under a different trust fund with support from the UK so we started in October 2015 with a big notice stakeholder awareness raising and capacity assessment workshop in which also here we assessed what capacities were needed to successfully implement voluntary guidelines in the process of the national land use policy. This was followed by a second workshop in which for the first time the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation joined together with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation in organizing the workshop and these were really huge gathering of multi stakeholders exchanging views exchanging ideas so it was very rich in technical content and also in the possibility of creating connections between the different stakeholders. And upon request of the Ministry of Agriculture Livestock and Irrigation we also carried out dedicated workshop on administration of tenure in June 2017. But before that in the country elections were held and there was a period in which the new government did not really know what to do with the national land use policy that was adopted by the previous government. And so there was a time when it was quite baking which was difficult to continue the process and we took the opportunity then to get with USAID EU and the Landfall Group to organize a workshop dedicated to private sector on land-based investments in which we found that international private sector is very much aware of the national instruments like the VGDT but also CFSRI and is aware how to apply them and how to be in line with what's internationally considered to be good practice whereas national private sector companies are much less informed about it. So it was a very good opportunity to have a room of people from the private sector and to really dedicate a full workshop to this sector and this specific subject. Now in the meantime the national land use policy and FAO's role in it also created the possibility that FAO was really established as a partner in this process. So this led to further work in the next slide in which FAO because of the subjects that were mentioned in the national land use policy also rolled out the learning program on safeguarding land tenure rights in the context of agriculture investments and epic development officials and there we really had a rich mixture of different ministries involved and a very eager audience to learn more. And in 2019 we started a huge collaboration with Landesa to provide further technical assistance but now in the implementation process of the national land use policy and with particular attention to the national land crafting process. So we started in June in 2019 and finishing in January this year. And this technical assistance also comprised a study visit to Vietnam that I will discuss later on which was a very important activity with important results. Now here at the bottom you see 12 documents that were all translated in Myanmar language in order to facilitate the work of mainstreaming the voluntary guidelines into the implementation process of national land use policy and that covered a whole range of subjects that were relevant to the two ministries with which we were working but also relevant to all the civil society organizations working with us. And also here we produced the policy to facilitate working with the voluntary guidelines. So the specific technical assistance in Myanmar consisted of a number of dedicated studies which we conducted and one such study was a COVID-19 impact study on small holder farmers in Northern Shan State. This was also a request of also our resource partners and this is about to be published as shown below. And we also did a study on assessing inclusive and participatory mapping of recognizing customary tenure systems. Customary tenure is a very important subject in the country where most of the people are actually having customary tenure rights. Those are recognized in the national land use policy but if you want to know which people have such rights and where is the territory where such rights are being held it's of course important that you are able to map that together with the people having such rights. Then as I already mentioned before there was also a peer reviewed article in the land use policy on the whole process that we supported that is accessible to you. And we also produced in the framework of the national land law process report that provides a framework for recognizing existing laws in the context of new land laws. This is joint work that was led by Nandesa. Then like the delegation from Cambodia, the Forestry Department, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation participated in the FIG working week in Hanoi as shown on the photo. But all the activities in Myanmar led to the culmination of a request for a combination of EU funded projects with the title promoting inclusive and integrated land use planning and management in Myanmar. A four-year project with a budget of five million euros that actually would have provided substantial on-the-ground inputs for the implementation process of the national land use policy. And because of the developments in the country this project is currently on hold. Now that we turn to Vietnam where most of the activities were in the frame of the support to the revision process of the 2013 land law. We go back again to our national approach. In Vietnam together with our partner AgroInfo, the Information Center for Agriculture and Rural Development that is part of the Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agriculture and Rural Development. This institute is actually kind of a think tank for the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. We organized the first multi-stakeholder awareness raising and bestie analysis workshop in July 2018. Now Vietnam was not new to the voluntary guidelines because they had already participated in a lot of activities organized by others and they had a very good role in the organization of the first Nekong Region Land Forum. So we could dive into the technical contents of the work straight away. So one of the subjects that came out of the capacity analysis was also the subject of agriculture investments and in the case of Vietnam it was very interesting because those investments do not only take place in Vietnam but Vietnam is also investing in other neighboring countries. So the focus and the rollout of the learning program to strengthen the capacities was a bit different from the rollout Myanmar and Laos and upon request of Vietnam we also included a module on gender equality. So this activity took place from February 2020 until May this year and it was really successful. It was conducted under not so easy circumstances because of the COVID pandemic but the participants of the rollout of this program came up with suggestions for follow-up which is currently in its last stages and this basically concerns rolling out this program at provincial level because this is the level where activities really are implemented and here again our info is our partner and this work started in March this year and will be completed by next month. So all the materials that they will be using will be have been translated already in Vietnamese and currently AgroInfo is really waiting to really plan the last couple of activities under this learning program. But one of the things of the technical assistance focus in Vietnam was that there was a window of opportunity to provide assistance to the 2013 land law revision process and in particularly in this revision process FVO together with AgroInfo again was looking at land accumulation and land concentration with work in six case study areas to collect evidence from the ground and this work was conducted in March 2019 until August this year and the results of this work and field evidence collected is now being prepared for publication. So this is one of the examples where we really were able to collect evidence from the field how to mainstream voluntary guidelines in this particular revision process but also on this particular company. Now the specific technical assistance as I mentioned earlier FVO and Landesa organized a study visit of a delegation of from Myanmar to Vietnam in July 2019 and this concerned government officials representing the upper and lower house of parliament the union attorney general's office which was in charge of the national land law crafting process and the two technical ministries so agriculture, livestock and irrigation and natural resources and environmental conservation. So these participants visited a lot of institutions in Vietnam from government but also social organizations and there were very rich discussions on a whole range of topics from land use rights, land use rights certification, how do you do the registration, how do you do the updates of registration, do you register in name of husband and wife, how do you evaluate land, how do you deal with the quota on a very rice land for safeguarding the production of ready rise in each country that means that farmers do not have a free crop choice and whole range of other subjects. And one of the things that we also did was that with the research center for initiatives and community development we organized a trip to visit the fields to to lie commune in Davak district to really talk with the people from the commune how to deal with all these subjects how it works in practice and also to make visits to small hold farms to discuss with the people how they had experienced for instance having to move to a new village getting a new farm settling in having your land use rights certificate what type of farming was practiced how is land allocated in the village so it was very practical and this provided a really rich information that the delegation from Myanmar took back and which was followed up with a whole series of follow-on workshops in Myanmar supported by Landesa and FAO in which the findings of their trip to Vietnam were further discussed how they could really feed into the process of the national land law drafting process so this was a really a very rich experience with a lot of implications for further work and further thinking in Myanmar. So let me now turn to the results at regional level and this basically is about the linkages between recognizing and protecting customary tenure rights and at the same time safeguarding tenure rights when land-based investments are made especially investments in agriculture. So we provided specific technical assistance at regional level for instance something that not many of you may be familiar with FAO and JAIFA have a partnership and in the lectures that are given each year as part of this partnership we had the participation of Myanmar, Timor-Leste and Vietnam from Asia region in 2019 in 2020 the whole course was dedicated to participants from Vietnam only representing also one of the ministries with which we are closely working and this year it was mainly for the participants from Indonesia and Vietnam and in these lectures land administration is the central team and that is complemented by international instruments especially dealing with land-based investments. What we also did was prepare a regional report with a comparative analysis of the legal frameworks for land-based investments so we did not only roll out the learning program in three or four countries but we also did a really analytical review of these legal frameworks to see how well are they prepared in dealing with land-based investments and where are the issues where more work or more thinking would also be needed in order to strengthen these legal frameworks to ensure that when land-based investments are made these are made in a responsible manner. And then we are working with the Ministry of Natural Resources in all of these countries and also the Ministry of Environment the names change a bit for country. Climate change is of course a big topic in Asia so in order to cater for that we prepared a series of policy briefs on climate change and tenure interlink challenges which is in the publication process and this also included a policy brief for China. So this is a forthcoming but also here climate change is one of the chapters in the voluntary guidelines it's towards the back many people may not reach so far into the voluntary guidelines but it's an important subject and one that will gain momentum in not only at the end of this week but in the next coming years. And Asia is really one of the hotspots in the world that will be hit by climate change so the countries really need to prepare themselves well. As I said the whole collaboration and work in the Mekong was triggered by our initial collaboration with the Mekong Region Land Governance Project and this has been a very fruitful collaboration I have not included the many workshops that were conducted in which we participated because I've been showing you the work that was mainly organized by FAO but I would like to mention in particular the regional landforms that were helped we participated in the first one in Vietnam and from then onwards FAO participated in the second and third landforms as co-organizer. We addressed all the topics of the work that I've been presenting to you and I can even add much more because there are also specific sessions on forest tenure, on gender equality and other relevant subjects and these always provided a very rich opportunity for people from the region to learn from colleagues in other countries but even to learn better the colleagues from your own country but working in a different ministry or in a different civil society organization or from academic institutions. FAO provided really a lot of ideas and exchanges to all the participants and the summary of the findings these forums documented in the two publications that I showed you below and I should also say because today's webinar is organized together with the land portal that the land portal was also always part of the organization of these forums so this was also joint work with the land portal. Now after having shown you all of this work where are we now what did we really achieve and what does the way forward look like? So FAO really achieved strengthening the policy legal and organizational frameworks in these four countries and sometimes even the coordination mechanisms basically by mainstreaming the voluntary guidelines in existing opportunities where a policy or law was being made or changed so it really fed into a country specific process. We raised awareness at national and local levels but this is of course a process that should continue and the type of awareness will change depending on the subject that is at hand. We strengthen system-wide capacities of change agents and organization on recognition and protection of US Americania systems as well as safeguarding land tenure when agriculture investment is placed but of course there is a need to continue to strengthen those capacities. We started mainly at national level but as you see from the example in Vietnam the strengthening needs to continue at local levels where actual implementation takes place and by capacitated more and more change agents and organizations. All countries had experience with the effectiveness of multi-stakeholder partnerships in the specific process in the country and as a spin-off they also started to apply the same process in other processes in country because they had really seen these both benefits. So for example in Myanmar the way the process was conducted for the national land use policy was replicated in the process for the agricultural development strategy and then of course tenure governance was embedded in the policy legal and organization frameworks but strengthening of implementation processes related to these frameworks is of course really needed because that is really the step in which an impact at local level in people livelihoods can be made so there's still a lot of work to be done. So I will leave you with two more messages from the overview of the work in the mail. Marianne and I think it's really important to keep the momentum created in these countries to maintain the created enabling environment. The responsibility of multiple stakeholders, everyone that was involved in the activities but also beyond to ensure the sustainability of results and here we also think that FAO and the resource partners have a role to play and of course improve tenure governance for the benefit of all which is the objective of voluntary guidelines. I want you to really understand that this is a long-term process so though we have been working already for several years and the work in my home started in 2017 this long-term process is not yet finished so there's much more to be done and we should also take an opportunity to make an inventory of where FAO could add further value in the process that are ongoing in these countries as well as all other countries in which such processes take place and with that I would like to thank you for your attention and I hand over to my colleague Makay. Thank you very much Luisa, thank you for this very elaborate presentation. My name is Makayri Gava and I'm a land tenure officer with the food and agriculture organization. I'm responsible for coordinating the integrated application of the voluntary guidelines and the AU framework and guidelines on land policy in Africa. This work is being done in collaboration with country-level support for Governors of Kenya in Africa which was funded by the EU facility and managed under a transversal arrangement together with my colleague Oda Melabi who may be with us today. Ladies and gentlemen, colleagues and friends, over the past four years the world has witnessed the reversal of fortunes with successive worsening of global food security situation. With close to a billion hungry people in Africa contributing about 21 percent of that number, the SDG target of zero hunger by 2030 is fast leaping away. There's a wide consensus that responsible governance of Kenya, especially in Africa, can significantly contribute to poverty reduction, improved food security, peace and stability. The promotion of responsible governance of Kenya over the years has shown that critical mass of informed agents and a commitment at political level could significantly change this trend. Now, turning to my presentation, which I'm going to share with you now. My presentation today will be focusing on this project that I've been talking about that supports integrated application of VGT and FNG in order to further support the implementation of the AU Declaration of Land Issues and Challenges in Africa. The presentation will focus on some key intervention areas of this project. That is strategic implementation, awareness raising, advocacy and knowledge management, governance of pastoral lands, land-based investments, gender mainstreaming and support policy, legal and institutional frameworks. And the presentation will end further with a quick snapshot of the work that is big done at country level in Malawi and Namibia. Since their endorsement in 2012, in Africa, the voluntary guidelines have been promoted in coherence with the African Union Framework and Guidelines on Land Policy in Africa to support the implementation of the 2009 African Union Declaration of Land Issues and Challenges. The AU Declaration is an important high-level commitment by the African heads of governance to improve land governance. This partnership between the voluntary guidelines and the framework and guidelines on land policy in Africa, which would not be called the FNG, in development of the strategic framework, was key to producing a number of intervention areas that will sustain the impetus of this partnership in the long term. One of the intervention area is increased awareness on the convergence and synergy of the FNG and FNG. That will ensure that as the project ends or other interventions, VGT interventions are put in place in Africa, this document is going to articulate the mechanism for joint application of the two frameworks. The other intervention area that is supported under the integrated application of VGTs and FNG is support to capacity development on governance of Kenya and then policies in Africa. As well as communication and advocacy and knowledge generation to support the integrated application of the VGT and FNG. The last most important intervention area within the strategic framework is the monitoring and evaluation and reporting on the integrated application. Now, turning to awareness-raising advocacy and knowledge management on VGT. The VGT implementation has caught some achievements in this area, especially at country level where more than 15 countries benefited from a series of national VGT awareness-raising workshops. VGT and FNG were promoted at high level flagship events across the continent. Some of these events include the conference on land policy in Africa that was first held in 2014. The second one was in 2017 and the last one was in 2019. We are looking forward to attending the fourth conference which is in 2021 in a few weeks' time. The UNGJM was another venue where most stakeholders attended, including technical people and practitioners in land governance, where the VGT and FNG were promoted. VGT and FNG were also promoted at various African land policy center meetings and workshops. Meetings held by the African Union and the Economic Commission for Africa. Under the same project, we also developed jointly with the Transfacer Project under the EU Land Governance Program, a web-based knowledge management platform which is now hosted with the Land Policy Center to ensure that it can continue to serve the African member states and support land policy development in those countries. This KMP knowledge management platform contains various tools and materials to support land policy development and implementation. The VGT were translated into various local languages under the same project, including Amharic for Ethiopia, Chichewa for Malawi, Siswati for Eswatini, Ocherero and Kuakoha for Namibia, as well as Swahili to cover a number of countries in East Africa. It's important here to mention that this translation supported the declaration of the Swahili language as an additional African Union language. A number of capacity development tools were also produced covering climatic areas such as customary land rights, governance of pastoral lands and land-based investments. The intervention also supported the establishment of the African Journal for Land Policy and Geospatial Sciences, which is an open access journal to which we all invite you to pay your attention. Regarding promoting VGT for responsible governance of pastoral lands, the project supported the establishment of the IGAD land governance and pastoralism platform, which integrates the VGT and FNG with regional instruments such as the AU policy framework on pastoralism. In the Sahel region, VGT implementation developed the regional and country-level institutional capacities and knowledge and on governance of pastoral lands. The countries that were impacted include Niger, Mali, Mauritania and Senegal. I take this opportunity to announce tomorrow's webinar that will give more details on governance of pastoral lands in West Africa, within the second session of this webinar which will focus on West Africa and Latin America. The project also promoted responsible land-based investments through an integrated application of the VGT tools with the African Union guiding principles of large-scale land-based investments. In Malawi, the government agencies were trained on management of large-scale land-based investments using the VGT and guiding principles on large-scale land-based investments. In Ethiopia, the land-based investments in agriculture were reviewed in line with the VGT and the guiding principles on large-scale land-based investments to ensure that the investments respect legitimate tenure rights of resident populations and promote food security. Now, turning to policy, legal and institutional reforms. Promoting coherent application of the VGT contributed to influencing the political will and commitment for policy, legal and institutional reforms by targeting parliamentarians. The Pan-African Parliament was trained on the use of VGT and FNG to develop gender-sensitive policies that promote control of and ownership of productive natural resources by will. The VGT and FNG were also mainstreamed in the modern law on food security, which was developed by the Pan-African Parliament. The VGT and FNG were key reference materials in the establishment of the East African Parliamentary Alliance on food security and nutrition, which has been running now for the last three years. The VGT and FNG were also used to raise awareness for the contribution of responsible governance of tenure to food security during the training for the establishment of the parliamentary network for food security for Africa and the Arab world. And the Afro-Latino-America parliamentary forum on food security Afro-Lat, which was established in Morocco in 2019. At the country level, the Parliament of Namibia was trained on VGT and FNG. This training resulted in a recommendation to mainstream the training on VGT into the induction and orientation of new members of parliament every five years. In the Senegal River basin, regional parliamentarians were trained on VGT and FNG as instruments for achieving food security. You will probably hear more if you attend tomorrow's webinar on the work that has been done by the program in West Africa. Continuing on country level, now on policy legal institutional reforms at country level, the VGT and FNG have been used to support country processes. For example, in Angola, a provincial bylaw for recognition of community and issuance of customary titles was issued for the first time in the country. And the VGT and FNG supported this process under the EU land governance program, which was also a sister program or a brother program to the Pan-African intervention. In Kenya, VGT and FNG contributed to the review of the national land policy and capacity development of county land boards. And in Malawi, which is one of our country case studies, VGT and FNG applications supported the implementation of the Customary Land Act, which is one of the 10 land laws that were reviewed in 2016. In Nishere, the VGT and FNG were instrumental in informing and guiding the national land policy review. You will hear more about this remarkable success in tomorrow's session of the webinar. In Mauritania, the VGT implementation catalyzed the national land reform process while in Guinea, it triggered the process of national land policy reform, which is still ongoing. On gender mainstreaming, the application of the VGT in coherence of the framework and guidelines on land policy in Africa has contributed to the implementation of the EU declaration on land issues and challenges with regard to gender equality and access to land. The EU declaration specifically mentions the need for land policies to address access to land by women. The multi-stakeholder platforms that have been supported by FAO and established the country level are now using the VGT as well as the framework and guidelines to raise awareness on gender in land governance. In Senegal, for example, a methodology to document women's land rights has been developed and guided by the voluntary guidelines. Turning to multi-stakeholder platforms, over 28 multi-stakeholder platforms have been integrated as every integrated VGT principles into their work on land governance. You will hear more tomorrow about the multi-stakeholder platforms in West Africa in the Senegal River Basin. In Nishere, Sierra Leone, Malawi, Senegal, and Mali, the MSPs helped to give direction to new land policies using VGT principles. Now I want to turn to the two country cases. We will hear more about the two country cases in Malawi and Namibia during the panel discussions. In Malawi, the VGT implementation supported implementation of the Customary Land Act. While in Namibia, it supported capacity development of law and policymakers and government officials on the use of the VGT and FNG in improving the administration of communal land. The VGT and FNG were also used to train parliamentarians, like I've said, in order to effectively deliver on their parliamentary roles of lawmaking, budget allocation, as well as oversight by the standing committees on natural resources. To borrow from the words of Mr Adriano Capolino, it is now clear that the nine years of promoting VGT and FNG has created a critical mass of informed policymakers and generated hope for improved full security amongst stakeholders and land rights holders. The challenge I have is how do we sustain the momentum? Engagements in land take a long time to realize the full impact. How do we keep the wheel in motion in order to reap the full benefits of effort and investments made over the years? I hope that today's deliberations, as we answer questions from the floor, will shed some light in this direction and that will influence the VGT interventions of the future. I hope among us, the resource partners who listen to this and see how best we can together move forward to design programs that can effectively deliver on the expectations of our stakeholders. For additional resources on VGT and FNG, please follow the links and for more in-depth knowledge on the interventions I've introduced, I refer to the land portal site that has been shared in the chat. I thank you very much for your attention. At this point, I would like to shift to a panel discussion which will focus on recognition and protection of customary tenure rights systems and safeguarding tenure in the context of the best investments. Okay, sorry to interrupt, but you'll need to stop sharing your screen, please. Thank you. Sorry about that. Thank you. We have a great lineup of experts with us today. The first expert we have on this subject is Excellency Kim Nong from Cambodia, Director General of the General Directorate of Administration for Nature Conservation and Protection of the Ministry of Environment. The second expert we have is from Laos People's Democratic Republic. It's Mr. Kitla Sai Kokmila from the Directorate, Department of Land for the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment. He's a Deputy Director General. I see our colleague from Malawi, David Chilonga has joined us. Welcome, David. He's a team leader of the land reform implementation unit in the Ministry of Lands Housing and Urban Development in Malawi, and he coordinates the implementation of the land laws that were recently enacted, as well as drafting of the new land related policies, laws, and regulations. David has several years of experience in land governance. Our next expert is Dr. Mark West from Landesa. He's a Program Director. We'll also hear from Eugene Kawakawa Chiwi. He's from Namibia. He's a national project coordinator and focal person for land governance and fisheries at the FAO Namibia since 2016. He's an agriculturalist specializing in animal science. Eugene has worked as an agricultural extension office and senior agricultural business analyst responsible for bilateral and multilateral cooperation in the then Minister of Agriculture, Water, and Rural Development, which is now the Minister of Agriculture, Water, and Land Reform. We have also, lastly, Dr. Fong An Nguyen from Vietnam. He is the Director of Information of the Information Center for Agriculture and Rural Development, AgroInfo, of the Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agriculture and Rural Development website. We'll begin with a round of dialogue. Okay, you can see what a very well experienced panel we have. We'll begin with a round of dialogue with our esteemed panelists, which will be followed by a question and answer session. We encourage you to ask any questions you might have using the feature, which is provided for in Zoom for doing so. And now, we hand over to Louisa Janssen to take the panel forward. Louisa, over to you. Thank you, Beke. It's my pleasure to moderate this first round of questions with our esteemed panelists. And I have the pleasure to start off with a question for his Excellency Kim Nong from the Ministry of Environment in Cambodia, and he is the Director General of the General Director of Administration for Nature Conservation and Protection, which is our prime partner in Cambodia. Welcome, Mr. Nong. I think you are in the UK because you will be attending the COP26, so it's a pleasure having you today on the panel. And we also should be aware that you have been very busy accompanying the Minister to this important meeting that will start this latest week. So very nice to have you in our panel. Let me start by asking you, Cambodia is one of the few countries in Southeast Asia that fully acknowledges Indigenous people's rights to their customary land in the National Legislature. So how can your Directorate, the Directorate of Administration for Nature Conservation and Protection, contribute to the recognition and protection of customary tenure systems in Cambodia? Mr. Nong, over to you. Okay, good afternoon everybody, and good morning everybody too, maybe someone in the morning and we are here afternoon. And sorry I have a technical problem, I could not show my face in the in the Zoom, I don't know. And I try to, I might start to think there. And nice to meet all of you and related to our experience to work with FAO on VGTT, that I would like to let all you know that Cambodia, they have 72 protected areas and the number of the biodiversity corridor, they have around 2.7 million hectares, like equal 41 persons of Cambodia land and the authority by the Ministry of Environment, especially for the my General Directorate of Administration for Nature Conservation and Protection as a responsible to do that. But to manage this, we have protected the real law, they have the mentioned that protected the real law, they have the importance to make the poor zoning, that first we call the poor zone, they have strong protection and strict protection. And a second conservation zone that we try to protect by all diversity and but allow some people in a larger research or other purpose for the study. And third, if we call a sustainable use zone, the sustainable use zone, they are in the law, they are say that for the economic development, that they will make the community protected area or the private sector to invest all the agroforestry or all the ecotourism etc. And the fourth one we call community zone, community zone is all the area of land, there are people in a community or indigenous people that live a long time. That they have some right field or farming or that, that we identify as a community zone that allow for the land title for the local people to use their own for right. Because based on this law, we still are working on the how to identify the zoning or working for the land in protected area. So the VGGT is one guideline that can additional help to improve our for-law practice or law enforcement or sometimes provide like a prepare of boundary demarcation for land registration, management of the zoning plan and to clarify identify or the protect core area, conservation area or inside protected area. That they help for us with the tool. One other that become strengthening of the law enforcement to ensure the sustainability use or a reduction of the illegal activity and also contribution of existing protected area to local community livelihood in the in and around protected area. Resolving land use conflict in and around protected area through the zoning classification and also they can help provide the capacity being the like technical training of the ranger and a protected area staff and with the local people they can cooperation each other. And this part is a lot to our work to improve our management in a protected and Cambodia. Sorry I can't tell my start to click for my picture. No you have a beautiful picture. You are basically stressing the interlinkages between conservation and protection of areas, how they are linked to land use planning, land use zoning but also to land tenure because land tenure I call of course not only rights they also have duties and those should of course be aligned to the land use zoning and that should be aligned of course to the bigger land use plan in the area being protected. You know like I told based on our law for when we are in the protected area when we have the we identify all the zoning we should have a lot of public consultation amount of relevant stakeholder like they can have some representative of local community or indigenous people local authority and all the relevant government technical department you know then we can identify why we need to this area act like core zone why we need this area as a conservation zone why we need this area as like a sustainable use zone and why we put as the community zone as like like sometimes a lot of negotiation because like when we when we make the protected area in Cambodia they have a lot of village inside a protected area and based on the like the development and improve the population increase so more the land that the youth for the local people is need more than that for the agriculture expansion so there are a lot of take a lot of time during each protected area that we do zoning you take a lot of take a long time you know to make clear why we need to identify like core area conservation area or a community area you know this work is still ongoing it's still ongoing because take a lot of time take a lot of resources both financial financial resource and human resources that in turn are working on the identify the zoning and one one one of the other tool to the solid conflict like land registration is a one of the make tool that we can't provide like like I say in the law or the community law they cannot register now based on the policy of the missing environment that we try to do both of land state land registration and helpful land registration thank you very much for your answer this long and also for linking back conservation and protection of nature areas back to the importance of land registration and also by mentioning the importance of consultations when really working on the ground with people I think these are additional issues that are very important to highlight now I would like to thank you for sharing those important insights with us so now let me turn to Dr. Mark West of Landesa and Landesa is of course based in the United States but Mr. Mark because we know each other very well he directs Landesa Southeast Asia program and of course they work a lot on together with governments and civil societies on securing land rights and particularly also securing land rights for women and men around the world I know that they have also done further work with the colleagues from the gender equality within my division especially in Vietnam and Myanmar so Mark as I may call you in Myanmar customary tenure is recognized in the national land use policy if we think of the situation before the first of February this year how could people especially ethnic groups and local communities protect customary land rights under the legal framework especially when there's no new national land law in place yeah thanks Louisa for having me and hello to the fellow panelists this is I just want to say at the beginning this this whole forum is great because that we have all been working on this together for so many years and it's great to be able to pause and have a kind of big picture but with quite a bit of detail how the VGs have connected with so many countries in so many common ways so I just want to say thanks to FAO for having this so specifically for indigenous people ethnic groups forest communities in in Myanmar you explained early on in your overview about the Mekong region Louisa about the national land use policy so that was a really important framework that put these rights into place at least noted them and endorsed them prior to a future land law and they're very clear you know ethnic communities rights traditional forest communities rights are very clear in the national land use policy which went into effect in January of 2016 so from that there have been parallel efforts by the ministries for regulatory changes that can bring forward these rights and make them more firmly grounded even without a land law yet so i'm going to point to one example of that that's that's not a minor example it's actually pretty broad and pretty helpful so the MONRAC which is the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Conservation in Myanmar had been working sort of in parallel with the national land use policy to put forward a revised community forest instruction and that revised CFI finally went into effect in 2019 it was originally 2017 and some final revisions so the the changes that were significant in the CFI there had always been a community forest option for upland and coastal forest communities within Myanmar but there was there were several prohibitions or limitations that really made these community forest rights hollow in a lot of ways or risky for communities in a lot of ways but some of these prohibitions were lifted in these revisions in 2017 and then finalized 2019 those were first of all there was a prohibition on shifting cultivation so the you know primary rotational farming method of many upland communities that was part of their traditional forest practice and farming practice for hundreds of years was prohibited and so they would lose their rights to their land even if they did have a community forest certified that was lifted that they own on shifting cultivation also and again that links to the national land use policy then right um also there was a ban on what they what they called gardening which basically means small farming um and and that was also lifted so now communities could practice shifting cultivation they could practice some farming on their own and they weren't merely um kind of you know under the hand of requiring forest production for the forest department and then a third thing that was added was mangrove area protection so this was new in the revised CFI and that's a very very important part of uh Myanmar's coast and a hugely important source of livelihood for the communities that live in these mangrove areas and it's it's actually a great example of the bg's because you have um forests and fisheries and farming all coming together in this coastal mangrove area so I would say those are those are ways that um traditional livelihoods and ethnic areas and indigenous areas can be protected through the CFI I will add though you know that the picture is not all rosy in Myanmar there were also um legislative threats to these tenure rights that came up at the same time after the national land use policy for example there's something called the vfv law the vacant fallow and virgin lands management law which was amended um a couple years ago 2018 that um these amendments were unfriendly so they created more risks for farmers who were in these traditional areas that had maybe been designated a long time ago as vacant land virgin land and there were increased penalties that were potentially placed on these communities so you know sort of a some positives some negatives um there's still you know quite a bit of jeopardy for the tenure rights of communities but I think the CFI the community forest instruction changes are a good example of how you can have the voluntary guidelines as a sort of you know international learning for a country and then the national land use policy as a way to um lay those out and then a specific ministry regulation that can have concrete impact to manifest those rights thank you Mark for this very detailed knowledge sharing from Myanmar I will now turn to the next panelist and that is David Chilonga from Malawi and in Malawi securing all categories of land rights has been recognized as a key factor for social economic development improving livelihoods and good environmental management special attention has been given to the administration of customary land which benefits most people before the 2016 review of land laws what were the key challenges in the administration of customary land rights and how has the application of voluntary guidelines and the african union framework and guidelines on land policy in africa contributed to resolving the challenges and and contributed also to enhancing local capacity to administer and facilitate recording and protection of customary tenure rights over to you David thank you very much there are several questions in one question but our attempt to to answer them accordingly thank you for having me before the 2016 review of the laws we had tenure insecurity a lot of land grabbing boundary disputes ownership disputes and poor land use management because most of the customary land is it where it was the people had just user rights and it's only this law which is providing for ownership of the holders or users of such land and in that way addressing the challenges which we had from the time of independence this has been assisted by the documents which you've just referred to the VVGT and the VGGT and the AU framework as the drafting of the laws had made reference to those instruments particularly the issues of awareness raising on land rights has been utilized gender has been mainstreamed in the land-related laws women can legally own land even the miners legulations and procedures have been revised and this is taking decentralized approach so we've been assisted in terms of the crafting of these laws and legulations based on these documents by way of domesticating most of the issues in there in terms of further actions we want to scale up awareness raising on the new land laws nationwide and to roll out the systematic land registration because we just did some pirates and the the success stories and the lessons linked will take us further to the actual roll out systematic land registration and also to strengthen capacity including recruiting most staff for land administration training procurement and the establishment of the digital and logistics i hope i've attempted to answer the questions i don't know whether i need to tackle the last one thank you no thank you mr and davis you don't know very much for sharing those important insights with us it was also a very complicated question thank you very much and also the previous families so the next round of questions on land-based investments will be moderated by mckay d mckay over to you thank you louisa i will take the next round of questions i would like to thank also the panelists for the last session the first question related to land-based investments and also with components of improving policy and legal institutional capacities to administer land will go to eugen kong wachiwi in namibia since independence greater effort focus has been placed on improving the living conditions of people in communal areas by improving administration of the communal lands since the enactment of the communal land act in 2002 some remarkable achievements have been made however challenges still exist looking back at the implementation of the act and the state of communal land administration can you share some some of the challenges that still exist in the recognition and protection of rights in communal land over to you thank you thank you very much mckay and also thank you very much to the organizers of this very important event we are extremely grateful that our FAO country office has been invited to participate in this very important discussion my name is Eugene kong wachiwi as earlier introduced and i'm a national project coordinator with the FAO country office here in namibia well maybe to start off mckay it's very important to understand that the land issue in namibia is highly contested it is fairly political and it's also a very sensitive issue and it should thus be dealt with utmost sensitivity particularly given the colonial past that has resulted in vast dispossession of land from the local communities so some of the current challenges that we are experiencing today actually emanate from this historical past now jumping to post independence era the country found itself you know facing all these challenges and we had to now navigate through this maze of challenges now what happened was namibia held two consultative land conferences one was in 1991 and the other one was held in 2018 but i would like maybe to start with the land conference of 1991 because that's the one that actually set the policy direction when it comes to land in namibia and and two of the main outcomes of this conference was that communal lands had to be retained expanded and also probably no i mean retained developed and probably also expanded if possible and another major outcome of that conference was that legislation had to be enacted that would help the country to govern these communal communal areas so what then transpired was that through a lengthy consultative process namibia finally enacted the communal land reform act of 2002 that is the act five of 2002 and this this act actually was was enacted to to help provide the legal framework to improve security of tenure land governance and land administration in communal areas and also to establish a communal land boards now probably coming back to to your question mckay despite the enactment of this of this legal instrument the country still faces challenges as you alluded to and and one of the challenges that i can maybe start with is the illegal fencing and dual grazing issues that are currently happening in communal areas those who are you know who are who are resource endowed if i may call it that way are fencing of vast tracks of land and these enclosures of tracks of land actually deny legitimate tenure tenure holders access to land especially the resource poor and to top it all those who are also you know rich or having extra resources even go beyond that and they acquire farms in the communal a commercial area where they are having title deeds meaning they've got exclusive rights that side but they also remain in the communal area and this dual grazing arrangement also again denies legitimate tenure tenure right holders also access to the land so i think more needs to be done really in order to curb this challenge and i think the VGT is one of those instruments that actually can be used to help the country to to overcome this challenge and then maybe another one quickly is the legislation of land rights is also an issue in Namibia at the moment what is currently happening is that they are they are traditional chiefs who are recognized and traditional chiefs who are also not recognized by government so and this actually creates a bit of a conflict not a bit of a conflict but really conflict in terms of whose whose tenure rights should be recognized and and registered after being granted these rights by the traditional chiefs so that is something that needs to be addressed as well and it's really creating a lot of animosity and you know and some disputes have actually gone to courts because of this maybe another one quickly because i know that we are pressed for time maybe another one is also the issue of gender equality in tenure rights despite everything a lot having been done to to to sort of equalize equalize the playing field in terms of access to land most still needs to be done because women has women in in some areas are still you know accessing land through through men either their husband or or brothers or uncle and so on and i think more needs to be done in order to guarantee and protect legitimate tenure rights of the vulnerable in society and also women um what another challenge that is also now coming up that uh that is of concern is uh informal land market you know those who are granted tenure rights by the traditional chiefs sometimes would go and sell off these pieces of land to others with resources maybe to for income generation and some of these people have now started to speculate in this process actually um so what is happening is that those with resources would you know fence of land and then sell it off to to potential buyers and actually now deny legitimate tenure right holders land uh access to this land uh because they would you know be perceived as not being strong enough to face these people and then the other one uh Eugene thank you Eugene thank you very much uh can you give us uh some challenges related to investments in communal areas and how the rights of communal land holders are being affected by these investments over to you yes you just you actually just read my mind because i was about to come there know the acquisition of large-scale investments in communal area is also not quite topical um uh the traditional chiefs have been requested to avail land for large-scale investments either mining or agricultural land and but but it remains a challenge because uh the compensation process of those who are moved from the land is still not clear and um you know the the the those who have legitimate tenure rights to this land when they are moved they are they are actually being denied of their rights to their land and i think uh uh with with the provisions of the VGT maybe the country really needs to to make this a compensation process much more clearer thank you uh meke i think i've tried to answer your question thank you very much Eugene uh thank you for uh these quick insights into the challenges that have been faced in uh administration of communal land in in in Namibia let me now turn to Mr Kotla Sai Kokmila for the next question Mr Kokmila is a deputy director of the department of land as i have already introduced to him uh that is working closely with FAO on a number of sub uh decrees related to the 2019 land law Mr Kokmila uh in lao democratic republic people's republic what are the biggest challenges and strengths in terms of responsible land-based investments over to you Mr Kokmila dear chair and on participants okay i'm very pleased to be a part of the very important event today discussing a very important cross-cutting issue uh first of all i would like to introduce myself again i'm Killa Sai Kokmila my role at the moment is DDG of the land department in Laos i have been responsible on land survey and land allocation work for the question i would start with uh the good point it is about the policy at the presently our government is very committed in the instituting reforms and to move forward in the promoting responsible agriculture investment it is uh evidenced by the current promotion of the relevant laws such as the investment promotion law land law and forestry law and uh various sub-registration governance and promoting responsible agriculture and other land-based investment for the biggest challenge i would like to share with you in some of the key points firstly the expansion of the large-scale plantation combines tea rubber sugar can coffee banana and also other crops agriculture plantations were sometimes made possible by massive declaration for deforestation and also degradation in the quality of land water and other natural resources the secondly in some investment sometimes took uh direct effect effect to the local people the local people will lose their light to use their own land and also they cannot access to the land for looking for wood wood for cooking uh and also sometimes the investment has some conflict between others uh invested and also the local people cause of the location overlapping and the next about the challenges there are many times to for the investor do not follow the agreement development plan they change the plan and also change the investor but with our report back to our government this is one issue uh happened in in in law right now finally uh about the challenges it is about the coordination among different ministry and government agency in the implementation of laws and recreation because in each sector has their own laws and own policy and these sometimes are implemented with the limited coordination with other sectors thereby the resulting in gaps and overlap in the implementation uh either for those challenges our government are very now working very hard with uh to show the to show the problem and also to do the evolution on the investment so in addition I would like to share with you right now we have the statistic of the investment in laws in our database right now it's about two thousands projects now they are implementing the investment in laws thank you very much thank you very much um mr uh codler sigh thank you for the insights i'm picking very interesting things that are coming from your presentation the conflicts between the communities and investors issues of management of investment contracts which is a weak point and the weaknesses in institutional coordination on investments uh those are key highlights that are coming from your from your presentation thank you very much um I will now uh tend to uh Dr. Fung, Dr. Nguyen uh Dr. Nguyen who is a director of the Information Center for Agriculture and Rural Development uh is a principal partner for FAO in mainstreaming the VGT in Vietnam uh Dr. Fung in Vietnam investments in agriculture agricultural land are being promoted what models and practices are most promising for promoting responsible land based investments in agriculture and food systems for your country over to you Dr. Fung uh thank you chair um thank you uh and uh good afternoon everyone so I'm very glad to be here to share the experience from Vietnam to a lot of experts from uh many countries over the world um so uh from Vietnam uh currently as you know Vietnam have a very good uh development in agriculture during the last decades however during uh current time the growth rate in agriculture has been slowing down and uh one of the reason is um resources uh natural resources used for the agriculture development has been uh up to the limits and uh the government policy now uh try to encourage the investment from the private sectors and consider it as one of the new um um sources for the development uh the investment of enterprise would come with the technologies investment as well as create a lot of more access to the international markets linking farmers to the to the market um however in Vietnam uh the one of the most constrained for the development is uh land um the characteristic of land in Vietnam is we have a quite small and fragmented land uh and by law all the land now already uh are located to individuals um under the name of land use write uh certificate um and every household now have a land use certificate with a very small uh farm size so the enterprise where whoever want to invest in the American church have to deal with uh many uh individuals farmers to get a sufficient land for the investment um especially uh uh when they want to sign in a long-term contract for the long-term investment uh and in Vietnam one um one of the solution for the investment in the land is uh uh contract farming um the contract farming in Vietnam has been uh facilitated by the government even currently we have a prime minister decree to facilitate the contract farming and um the contract farming uh it created a lot of urban peace i think all the experts here understanding well about urban peace of contract farming and particularly under the view of the VCCT the contract farming ensure the land use right of farmers uh and um also with the investment from private sector the farmers can access to the market uh high quality uh market and then uh in return they have uh incentive to apply the the the the high quality standards in their farming practice and then to protect the environment however the contract farming even now also have a lot of constraints and uh that uh both side for enterprise and from uh uh dealing with uh and one of that is um uh the overused uh land uh and instructing uh the resources of the enterprise to maximize their benefits is always happening everywhere uh if we have we don't have uh efficient uh law with efficient enforcements um and the VCCT VCCT is one of the solution that Vietnam now looking for uh and this project um uh have to help our ministry of agriculture uh in that aspect and uh as presented by uh luizas from beginning um this project help uh our institute uh is um agriculture policy and strategy institute uh to contribute the ideas of VCCT on the process of land law revisions and we uh with the uh consultation of the FAO expert and applying the VCCT principles we try we already have a lot of uh policy brief policy paper uh send to send to the ministry of agriculture uh to contribute to the revision of the land law which will be uh um in plan to be revised in the next year by the national assembly uh we also did a lot of um workshop and expert consultation meeting and uh policy dialogues uh in which we also sharing the idea of VCCT in land use uh so we try to convince the policy makers uh besides the policy that encouraging the enterprise we also need some policy to um to control their their the bad effect of the investment on land uh particular on the environment and on the land tenure right of the small scale and uh particular the ethnic minority people who are the very vulnerable in the development of the economy um so thanks to the support of the project we have done many activities and one of that is I think is very important uh and would be experience for the other country for the other developing countries like Vietnam is we have we can organize the training uh program for for the um government government officers a particular at local uh authority like uh at provincial authorities who are directly give the give the acceptance for the proposal of the investors so uh by doing that uh the trainings uh we figure out that there are a lot of gaps uh in understanding uh and the list of the local authorities on uh their understanding on the VCCT principles in Vietnam a lot of issues are related to the VCCT principle already um being issue and given in many different laws like investment law or um many other law land laws as well but to link all the the principle in the structural way as a VCCT principle uh we don't have so the local authorities they don't have such a structure and logic understanding on the VCCT principles so by giving the training we can help uh help them to see uh those principles in different laws and um helping them having more uh confident and and no less in doing their job and uh in the province whenever they uh the evaluate the pro proposal uh given by the private sectors thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you all that all that that i want to present thank you doctor thank you doctor form thank you doctor form for those enlightening points i know that you have got a lot to say um again thank you doctor for nguyen and uh at this point i will now hand over the floor to my colleague louisa yansen uh for the qna session louisa over to you thank you mckay well we actually have only five minutes left for the qna session and i've been looking at the questions that people submitted in the qna box um in order to find one that uh maybe more than one panelist could give an answer to um there are questions related to the fact that of course the the vgt t they recognize legitimate tenure rights of one of the key points in the vgt t meaning both legal and socially recognized rights and several people have put in their question um related to the fact how do you deal with having both uh legal rights and and socially uh legitimate rights uh how can you be successful in a country by by doing what so is there any of the panelists who would like to uh answer that question i mean if not i could also point someone because it's a big issue in some of the countries um mark would you be able to say something in the context of me and mar about this issue because this is one of the points addressed in the national land use policy sure um i would just raise the question of gender and i'll go back a little bit to the um point that i was making earlier about the community forest instruction and the national land use policy so legally there is not a statement of women and men having joint titling for example for tenure rights um which you do see in other southeast asia countries um cam boat uh cambodia for example vietnam um however there is a social understanding in in mar mar culture or in me and mar in general of women and men having equal rights there are quite a few um you know gender restrictions socially there are quite a few um practices where there are not equal rights but there is an understanding at least expressed by many that women and men are you know equal household members and so one way that the the social practice and the legal practice combine is that although for example in the community forest instruction it does not explicitly state joint titling there is a practice in many of these community forest certifications that we've worked with with the forest department in the past that women and men men can jointly title together so there is something called the community forest user group list which is where you basically list all the households explicitly who have rights under that new certification and in the past um it was just a default that you would put the male head of household names you might have you know a hundred names that are all in manmar mister would be but now we've begun to press the social point that women's names should also be on those lists and so now you'll see in many places that the user group list says ooh which is mister and then also dawg which is man and you'll have the woman and man's name all the way down the list which is great to see so it's an example of um a social effort to line up with a kind of missing legal piece I will also just add that in farmland titling so not just community forest certification but farmland certification um there have been many cases where joint titling has been proposed even though it's not stated explicitly in the law but joint titling has been proposed in land allocation and the husband and wife's name has come back from the land department with that joint title thank you bar any of the other panelists who would like to add to this maybe one of the panelists from Africa because this is yes change yes no thank thank you very much Louisa um maybe just to add from Namibia side that Namibia is actually regarded as one of the self-starter when it comes to the provisions of the VGT on particularly on responsible governance and aspects of legislation inclusive consultation and participation of stakeholders is actually quite key in Namibia as can be seen in the processes that was followed when the two land conferences were held in Namibia as well as the lengthy consult consultative process that took place before the enactment of the of the communal land reform act um so in fact the VGT is actually seen in Namibia is a very important reference document and there's it's a it's a it's an important reference document in the implementation of the of the communal land reform act in fact there's convergence in terms of what is contained in the act and also what is contained in the in the VGT um the the the last land conference that was held in in 2018 that actually tracked progress in terms of what was uh recommended in the first land conference of 1991 there are some challenges that were identified in that in in in the communal land reform act and this was also um uh some of the weaknesses that maybe that was identified but of which the VGT is is is alluding to and and the recommendations are actually speaking to what the VGT is is calling for so I think the that convergence is there and now that that act will be reviewed soon as well so I just wanted to share that with it with the uh with the listeners as well thank you thank you very much um I now turn to the organizers to let me know whether we can do one more question or if we should go into the break well I think we're gonna have to go on to the break so that we have enough time for the presentations after the break I would ask if the panelists could take a look at the questions in the Q&A function in zoom there is a function there that allows you to type in some answers so it would be I think everyone especially those who answer ask the questions would appreciate it if you could all have a look at those and uh and provide some some answers so with that thank you to Luisa and McKay and to all the panelists let's take a five minute break uh and we'll come back with our next presentations thanks very much and I do think we were going to show a video during the break if I'm not wrong so uh if you're not going to stretch out yourself after such a long sit you you still have something to look at see you in five minutes time yeah thanks Luisa yes just please don't leave please stay on the line and okay and we'll be uh coming back in five minutes thank you so much stay on the line everybody thank you for joining us so I'm sure most of us can understand the uh the audio in the uh in that video. I'm sure most of us can understand the uh the audio in the uh in that video. Please note that Mr. David Jolonga who is in the video is one of our panelists and I'm going to take the liberty of saying that if you have any particular questions related to the video that you might go ahead and put those in the Q&A and ask David to have a look at those. So that was a very rich first couple hours of the webinar. We're now going to move to our next session which is focused on integration of the VGGT principles into the UN convention to combat desertification. That's the UNCCD. We'll be hearing from Sasha Alexander from the UNCCD and Aurelie Bress of FAO. Sasha Alexander is a policy officer with the secretariat of the UNCCD where he focuses on the role of sustainable land management and ecosystem restoration in helping countries to achieve the sustainable development goals. And specifically the target on land degradation neutrality. He coordinates the publication of the global land outlook and facilitates the UNCCD's role in numerous global partnerships, high level meetings and expert workshops. Aurelie Bress is a land and water officer at FAO land and water division. She's been supporting the implementation of the VGGT and tenure related projects in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean and Europe, just about the entire world for over a decade. As a trained agronomist, her work currently focuses on supporting mainstreaming the VGGT in sustainable natural resources management. So again, remember if you have questions, please use the Q&A function. And with that I will hand it over to Sasha before it's yours. Yeah, thank you Darryl. And thank you for this opportunity. We're very honored to be here with you today and update you on the work of the UN Convention to combat the certification as regards to land tenure. In 2019, at our conference of the parties, the 14th session, our parties adopted a groundbreaking decision on land tenure. It acknowledges the importance of responsible governance of land for addressing the certification, land degradation and drought. And it's in its key role in achieving land degradation neutrality targets under SDG 15.3. It was a landmark decision because the UNCCD is the only multilateral environmental agreement explicitly addressing the issue of land tenure and recognizing the importance of enhancing tenure security. As a starting point, our parties have requested guidance on how to integrate land tenure and specifically the principles of the VGGT into the work of our convention and to achieve land degradation neutrality targets and the broader efforts to scale up land restoration. The decision requested by the requested the secretariat, together with FAO and other partners to develop a technical guide. This guidance will then be considered at UNCCD COP 15, which is expected to take place in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire in May 2022. Our colleagues from FAO will be presenting the content of the technical guide in more detail, but I wanted to highlight a couple key aspects. During the last year we've engaged numerous partners in developing the technical guide, including multi stakeholder e-consultations and harvesting the lessons learned from a series of country case studies. Based on these discussions, we have identified nine pathways to address common bottlenecks regarding tenure and specifically as it relates to sustainable land management. These pathways address a range of issues from legal and policy frameworks, integrated land use planning, and land administration tools for both private and public lands. The overall goal is to provide recommendations to policymakers so that they can work towards enhancing legitimate land rights across regions, countries, cultures, and communities. The pathways are flexible, voluntary, and action oriented. They are rooted in the UNCCD COP decisions and the VGGT principles, and thus can be tailored for different national and local contexts. With your extensive experience in implementing the VGGT, we hope to learn better how we can assist countries with finance and other tools to translate the technical guide into policies and actions that improve tenure security. We invite you to share your experiences and to participate in the convention process. There will be several opportunities in the lead up in May 2022, where we expect further guidance from our 196 country parties. On a last note, I think in the chat box you'll have a link to the decision that was taken in 2019 so you can also see what the parties requested of themselves in terms of what they feel are the needs as regards to land tenure and its role in scaling up sustainable land management. Thank you again for this opportunity. Thanks. Thanks very much Sasha. Now let's turn it over to Aurelie for us to tell us, or to take us to the next presentation. It's all yours. Thank you. Let me just share my screen. Now it should be okay. Is it okay? Not yet. Do you see it? It's not yet in presentation mode. It should be now. Okay. Do you see? Still not in presentation mode. Please not that I can see. It has been playing presentation mode on my side. It might be a bit of down on internet. Do you see the presentation at least? Yes. Okay, so maybe I go. I hope it's readable. I think it's probably okay. Okay, thanks. So, thank you. Thank you for giving me the floor and thank you Sasha for this overall presentation. I will go a bit more in-depth into where we are on this technical guide and on the process we've been building with UNCCD to support actually the building of the decision of the community as was said by Sasha. The COP was landmark in the recognition of the VGGT in a multilateral convention in one of the Rio Convention and there have been also this specific request to prepare a technical guide to see how it could be implemented so how the VGGT principle could be implemented, could be supporting the implementation, could be integrated to the implementation of UNCCD convention and to achieve this decision also builds on previous work from the Science and Policy Interface of UNCCD where it was acknowledged the role of governance of tenure into creating a positive enabling environment to achieve LDN and particularly looking at the institutional arrangement that our land governments and the policy regulatory framework as you will see those elements then have been embedded into the technical guide. Of course, everyone is very knowledgeable. This is the set of principle we are looking at when we look at the VGGT with the key concept of legitimate tenure rights that is central for all the technical guides. So without much time on it, we will jump directly into the technical guide, knowing also that the technical guide puts on these two sets of principle I just show and the entire guidelines and explanation that they are into the VGGT. One element that was because of its nature, the technical guide is global. So it needed to accommodate a lot of different tenure situation that can be met around the world. And so for this it has also incorporated all the text of the VGGT that already integrate all these possibilities. So as was highlighted by Sacha, it was important to provide UNCCD parties with a tool that is flexible. So we designed a series of pathway that builds on the experience that builds on values thing we'll see how those pathway were designed. But we acknowledge that they may not be all relevant for all countries and rather also seeing the technical guide as a methodology to approach and to see what pathways are useful. I'm sorry to interrupt, but we're still seeing only the title slide and I'm not sure if you have moved on. I have been moving on. So if maybe Neil can take, yes, thank you. I think Neil, thanks. Yeah, it's very strange because I was already so later on you can go down Neil and a bit down. And again. And again, sorry for that colleagues, and this is the one I was on. So, yeah, so the voluntary nature that was absolutely key for also UNCCD party and to respect what are in the voluntary guideline are all here. And the participants know the nature or scope of the voluntary guideline for seeing that there are voluntary and they can be incorporated with a country choose to incorporate them within their national framework with some advice on the procedure to how to incorporate the VTT are action oriented and multi scale approach. Basically they look at the out of implementation and that's interesting because it relates a bit to the question that was brought forward by Varganche for instance of what is the translation on the ground. Well, the technical guide here looks at that trying to help on the translation on the ground and also just today, a certain type of work of FAO is presented, but not the entire type of work that FAO leads on tenure. For instance, there is also a lot of work that are done directly in country through other modality and through other type of project. So we look at land banking, land consolidation, indigenous people, registration, land rights registration, or for instance, how to improve registration, recognition and registration of legitimate rights on statements and so on and so forth. So the concrete example and guidance over how this action can be implemented are within the technical guide. And of course as I say it is put it in the composition and the VTT next piece. And to build the pathways, there have been a process that we have reached to have participatory and base also on case studies. So we embark on it and sorry there is a mistake on this slide. From June to November 2020, there have been a series of stakeholders meeting to gather case studies, to discuss case studies, to understand better how the next use tenure and land degradation neutrality functions, and then also a strong FAO and UNCCD internal review and literature review to inform what could be the pathways. So now I will come to what are the pathways. Next please. Voila. So we have designed a series of nine pathways where you would see that four of them are highlighted with a bronze shade below, and we consider them as a kind of universal pathway if I can say we would we would advise country embarking on LDN initiatives with the desire at looking at tenure issue to increase the sustainability actually of their LDN initiatives and increase also the capacity of all to be part of it by increasing the tenure security and end the recognition of legitimate right. Those four pathways are to be considered we would advise on those four pathways are looking at the policy and legal frameworks, both in terms of legitimate tenure rights, to recognize within this policy and legal frameworks, in order for all legitimate tenure rights orders to engage within also LDN initiatives, but also at another level, making sure that there is an alignment between the corpus of the policy and legal frameworks to relate to LDN, and the one that relates to tenure and showing that there is no trade off or no contradiction within values legal frameworks know that they both support at the end of the day, LDN initiatives LDN Of course that has been highlighted in several of the presentation within the VGGG approach is always to have this policy and legal frameworks review process link also to mechanism mechanism of participation and policy coordination mechanism. So both at national and at local level at local level, particularly with what and national level with what we call also the multi stakeholders platform, but also here, a very important level of interoperability of data, the capacity basically to have the data line whether they are on tenure, or accessible whether they are on tenure, whether they are on LDN in order to make informed decision, and also strive for gender equality in terms of rights that we would wish to consider. Of course, because LDN initiatives go on the ground, and they can change value of the land. It is to be well aware that they can come along with dispute arising or grievance also towards the mechanics, the initiatives, the actions on the ground. This is why we advise also to always have grievance and dispute resolution mechanisms within, within the LDN initiative and embedded. And then there is a series of pathways that are more telomates that are more as we were saying the part that is flexible know that each country depending on their situation can choose on can see as being pertinent of having or not. So first one is to have a land use planning and integrating tenure aspects. And on that, meaning that land use planning can include the recognition of legitimate tenure right and ensure the participation of all legitimate tenure rights within the process of land use planning. Then after land administration tools, that's the pathway six that is indicated as land management and development tools, but it's land administration tools that look into particularly two tools that are maybe less of use in Asia or Africa less directly, but particularly in, for instance, Eastern Europe, which are land consolidation and land banking. Of course, when we are talking of this tool, we are talking of process that respect human rights that respect the notion of legitimate tenure rights, and that are made in the sense of having participants of land consolidation scheme, for instance, as well off, at least as well off at the end of the land consolidation processes. So it's always of course in the frame of responsible governments that we are there. And then the three last pathway that look more specifically when we are talking of the values, then your regime that we can have to be cleanse comments and private lens, and that look at national and local level, what can be set up to improve recognition and recording of tenure rights on public lands on comments and how to strengthen the capacity, the capacity of private land owners or private land users, such as for instance, release to incorporate land degradation neutrality to participate better towards land degradation neutrality efforts. And that would include, for instance, also part of the discussion that has been made, how can for instance value chain actors who contract farming participate within it. So that's, of course, it's a bird eye view over the technical guide, and also to say that the technical guide address mainly to a policy decision maker. So what one will find after in the technical guide is that there is a series of advice at national and local level. And a lot then of reference over other technical guide that have been prepared within, within far words or within other partner words, and that are relevant to, to deepen and to really for the practitioner to deepen in and to see how to implement the pathway. Now, next please. Just a few case study because I think I'm reaching the end of the time. And on that, several highlights from from case study that we are having in the technical guide and that I will be pleased also to discuss also with the participant. For instance, in Sierra Leone, that has been setting a very strong with the actor and with the sector approaches. So that would be related to the pathway to in order to follow up all the process of legal reviews and policy review. Policy framework and legal framework reviews in land, forest and fisheries that have happened in Sierra Leone. Also, another example is the case of Mongolia who has reviewed the way to how to register legitimate tenure rights on public land in order to improve tenure security for pasture lands. Another example is the in Kyrgyzstan. It's since 2009, for instance, a land in your reform that has been made for pasture management in order to reduce the land degradation that they were forcing in that they were having on pasture. And that has been done particularly by decentralizing the management of pasture of pasture management or pasture community and pasture users. And, and changing the way also to have for instance fees and leases towards on the on the pasture land to allow access. In Lao PDR also another example that is how the land use planning has been linked to the process of recognition and recording of tenure rights at village level. And also our since 2019, this has been combined with participatory agriculture land management process that can that are supported by the ministry, the Monroe, the ministry of natural resources and environment and the ministry of agriculture and forestry. And next is that I will stop so that there could be time for discussion. Thank you. It's very much early and I'll to Sasha for those presentations. We got we have some for questions now I don't have a looking in the Q&A to see if we have some for this panel. Let me let me just ask one of myself as we as you await some more questions from those in attendance. And actually maybe Sasha you mentioned in your presentation. Common bottlenecks regarding tenure, relating to sustainable land management, and I wonder if you could say a little bit more about what those are and early feel free to jump in and add if you have some thoughts. Yeah, thanks Darryl. Yeah, I mean, I think we, this is an emerging issue for our convention. So there hasn't been a long history of really exploring the needs of the countries but what what came out in the decision. And in the discussions at the last conference of the parties was that there's a lack of technical capacity, a lack of administrative capacity to actually keep the tenure the registries the all the all the tools and, you know, the paraphernalia of a good secure linear system together in many developing countries. Their priorities are are much higher level in terms of dealing with with human needs human can the human condition. And then there was the issue of finance in that, you know, there are, there's a lack of finance that's going to support the, the processes that are needed to really increase the security of tenure. And, of course, there are a number of cultural norms, societal attitudes that were discussed and that that everybody here is familiar with. And those were, in some cases, seen as bottlenecks. So, yeah, over. Thanks. Anything you'd like to add on that point. Yeah, maybe with a with a local perspective adding to to the view global view that Sasha just highlighted. The central question will be when we look at bottleneck is that is everyone able to go with an LDN initiative to embrace it to participate within it, because the achievement of land degradation neutrality will be rich if everyone that can be concerned that the player can be playing actually. And so it's where we see the new security as so key and so key to enhance. And sometimes it's only in the integrity sometimes it's only because there is a lack of trust at local level into a lease agreement and so these agreements are only for one year, which does not allow to have the perspective and to adopt some of LDN measure that can be costly at just at the beginning when they are adopted. So there is that, and there is this need to, to give tools to look into it. As was saying also Sasha there is this lack of finance and I think what brings the decision is also to have tenure dealt by another angle now. It's also by having it embedded in in a project that are directly looking into land degradation neutrality and having there may be punctual action but keep on to election to allow that that all player can play. So that would be that. Thank you. We do have a couple of questions in the q&a. I will. I will post to you both now. One at a time first from have time on Lee, and I'm sorry if I mispronounced your name. As you know, key governance issue determining the likelihood and duration of conflicts is the interface between the fall slash statutory system and customary laws and structures really to land. So, and this of course is a very, very big question. I think we have all dealt with the question is, how to solve these, these challenges and become successful in customary land tenure systems. So here again, this is this interface that we encounter so many times between formal law and customary law. So, or Lee, would you like to maybe stab at that one. Well, I think it's a process, because it won't be. It's a massive question. And it should be as a process. So if we look from the angle now where we are talking at looking on when we have this tenure land degradation neutrality nexus. I think what offers this nexus to abort the question and maybe won't solve all but he can start bringing elements of the answer is at first because LDN is very much seen also at local level. It is already to look into what local level within the customary system, whether all legitimate tenure right recognize are all able to participate within the land degradation neutrality effort. What is how is their issue within the on our function the customary system at local level that triggers for instance land degradation and from there also from this also local work having started to have and serve. And of course, it's where the machinery needs to be put in place and what I was highlighting in the presentation on the technical guide there is a need to have a local and national level. Because then after what one can hope is that throughout this process, then there is recognition that is done within within the law to progressively also match this gap, not having this very strong discrepancy between statutory and customary. Of course, maybe not everything will come under that story but again, the idea is a progressively to ensure that the recognition of legitimate tenure rights can happen. Thank you. Thank you Sasha anything on this. Just, just to say that as you as you mentioned Daryl the role of trusted institutions that the mutual trust, the recognition that you know there's a continuum of legitimate tenure process. I think that that's, that's really the solution and a lot of that's happening at the local level. Great. Thank you. Thank you. We have another question from Chris Tanner. Chris writes, I'm struck that the case studies all talk about in agreeing custom. The parentheses legitimate tenure into state frameworks, instead of starting by accepting custom as baseline formality upon which all other elements are constructed. The latter approach seems to me to be more aligned with the lived reality of most citizens in countries with distinct cultures and entirely legitimate and functional land systems. Any comments on the panel on Chris point here. Yes, most willingly. Maybe. This is an important comment. And I will start by, maybe if we go a bit in the gray areas, for instance, we can see that some land tenure reform has been working on that. No, the land tenure reform in Madagascar in 2005 is looking at how the practice of the petit papier can be actually turned into a way to be formalized. And come into statutory and that has been the land tenure reform that has been adopted and with them after all the organizational framework with the setup of the land tenure counter. So then after we can maybe have a discussion on the effects and so on. But second point that I think is why as actor as tenure actor we we try to drag. We try to have this customer right being acknowledged within the statutory framework and the statutory framework ends being expanded to make this place for oil is also the issue of Then after, if not, is there not a risk to have a confrontation of two type of rights between the statutory and the customary and the risk that the legitimate tenure rights, if not in, does not get acknowledged at all and may just been disregarded. So, so the risk here, I think we all have in mind is that if the tenure customary tenure right does not come into the statutory they are not recorded, then they can be for instance and crush upon rather easily, more easily. So, I would say that the answer to your comment will be at those two level, but I guess it would require an entire panel and an entire session on this topic. That is, that is for sure. Sasha, anything you'd like to add there. No. Okay. We have another question from. And again sorry if I mispronounce your name. Abdi Mahad Ibrahim Omar. And he asks, would you be able to explain what are the differences between customary and statutory law as they relate to tenure. And I think he's particularly interested in what customary law means in case of indigenous peoples. Orli, I think that might be for you again. Yeah, okay. For me, also for my numerous colleagues, expert on tenure within the panel, I guess. But usually what is described as statutory law is the law that is written. So it's the one that exists. That is, that is the legal framework that has the state. It can be the constitution, the laws, also the regulation. And the customary law will be the one that is not in this written constitution law or regulation. But is actually applied on the ground by the communities. So that would be the difference. And then when we say customary, it includes also the one that may be applied by indigenous people, so meaning a group that define himself as indigenous people. Because this is the definition of indigenous people. Local communities and indigenous people can have customary law, meaning that the rules that are agreed locally by communities and that are used. That would be an answer. I don't know if any of my colleagues want to add on it here. As you say, this is a, it's a, it's a big shoe, and it's interesting that everyone is focusing on this, this sort of the relationship between formal and customary, customary tenure. I think it's fair to say that securing customary tenure rights is really one of the things that is at the heart of the voluntary guidelines. It covers a lot of issues, but that one to me has been really critical. So thank you all. Thanks very much to the, to the panel for your presentations and for answering the questions. Thanks also to those who asked questions. I want to move, let's move on now to our closing session. And Javier Molina-Brus is going to be providing his concluding remarks with his kind of key takeaways from the session today. So Javier, it's over to you. Oh, thank you Daryl and thank you everyone. Thank you very much. Everyone for this very rich in terms of an event in exchange in terms of information, experiences that have been shared. And, and here I wish me makes, you know, the, the task of capturing main ideas and difficult because so much information was presented and shared and so many ideas here that we, and lessons learned that we can take, you know, away. Nevertheless, I'll make an attempt to capture some key ideas, and I will start by saying something about the Macon region, which is to me, a lessons that applies everywhere, not only to the Macon region and that is that improving land tenure systems, improving governance of tenure institutions is a long term process. As we saw in the Macon region, our colleagues started back in 2015 with multi stakeholder consultations then moving on to a national dialogues later in 2017-2018. And so, and that was the process that involved is a whole set of multi-stake holders, and that, that took a lot of efforts, concerning awareness, racing, and also developing capacity in a way that these process allowed this multi stakeholder platforms and processes to focus on target policy reviews and policy changes, and that allowed results in terms of reviewed policies reviewed policies improved. And so we have a long term process that involved a number of multi stakeholders, a within set of actions from awareness racing to translation of technical guides, drafting, long drafting process, etc., and all together creating what it is what we may call the enabling environment. So the enabling environment takes a lot of efforts which again involve all those actions that I mentioned before. In addition, we also learned that having a good understanding of local tenure systems is key. And that was illustrated by the mapping exercise done in Myanmar to gain a better understanding of the local tenure systems, which informed the drafting the review of the laws, a lot of laws that apply to those systems. And then that was somehow illustrated also by our colleague from Landesa when saying that community rights to forces somehow were achieved after a process again was seen how that law was complimented by other actions that would facilitate, you know, the exercise of tenure rights to forces by those communities. We also learned that approaching engaging parliamentarians is is also key to facilitate the policy review to pass to facilitate improving, you know, land institutions, land administrations or country level. So engaging parliamentarians, the upper house, the lower house was a key step and also facilitating the exchange between countries as was illustrated by Luisa was also central to that process. I also would like to highlight the fact that the the VTS can help safeguard tenure rights in the context of land based investments as illustrated by Vietnam in the case of Vietnam we saw we heard that contract farming is good can be a can bring benefits to farmers, but also in the right context in the sense that safeguards are built in a way that those investments don't infringe upon the rights of farmers. Have you said that I would like to move on to Africa, where we have a key lesson learned in Africa, which is partnership the value of working in partnership with partners in this case I'm talking about the African Union, which allowed in this case to integrate the voluntary guidelines with the framework guidelines on that policy in Africa in the African Union. So that was a key partnership that allows again to have an integrated a policy framework. And so, in the case of the Mekong region, we also saw the multi stakeholder processes platforms have been central to facilitate and engage key actors at country level and engage them in a policy discussion leading to policy review, new laws, new regulations concerning land rights. And so that's another a takeaway in processes that are open to the different actors at country level and targeted action for which capacity development and particularly the role of change agents is central. So, in the context of Africa, we also learned that these are a central to safeguard tenure rights in the context of lamb based investments. And in this connection, I would like to highlight also the fact that because of the situation, let's say a the challenge rather, and we heard that from our colleague Eugene in FAO Namibia, in the situation we find a community level whereby traditional authorities can grant land rights, but at the same time, the state is the one that recognize those rights when we don't have a connection there where we have a gap between granting those land rights and the recognition of those rights may create situations in which those rights may be infringed upon. And we heard that for instance, you know, some some that uses and punching on community lands and that may create conflicts. Again, the VGTs in this case, as illustrated, are central to address those conflicts by addressing improving the laws, the regulations that can help facilitate a conflict resolution. Also, we heard that in that the multi stakeholder processes in particularly in West Africa have been very successful. And, and I would like to raise here the issue of how these also multi multi stakeholder platforms can also help address the power asymmetry that can be among the platforms when dealing with land issues. That question was raised in the question and answer box. And I think that's something for us to think how these platforms can be used to address the power asymmetry. When we have powerful actors, at the same time, a powerless or less powerful actor at the same time coming together and how that can be leveraged in a way that we will level that playing field. But the same token trust, how trust can be built through these processes. And we trust was an issue raised by our colleague Sasha and also others. How we can somehow engage the different actors in a way in particular the state, those who have the authority to make decisions in a way that we level the playing field. Finally, because I'm running out of time, I would like to highlight the, the fact that gender remains in an issue, how although laws have been improved policies legislation have been improved still securing women's rights remain an issue, which means that moving forward, that should be on top of the agenda. As it should be how we can leverage the VGTs to address pressing issues such as the forest station and land degradation. We know now, we heard from our colleagues at the ACCD and our colleague also from Water Relief that we are working on a technical guide to address land degradation and neutrality as a concrete contribution to address the deforestation of the climate crisis. And by doing so, the climate crisis that we are in already. So this is a central issue because this is the future, not the past. We are talking about the future, and we have already some concrete a lesson learned from this exercise from this project for this exchange that points at, we can improve governance of tenure. We have the VGTs as a soft law to do so and now we know how to do it. We have to be patient and build step by step is a long term process changes don't happen overnight as we saw it in the American region. And we have to build alliances, reach out to different partners that we have done in Africa with the African Union with parliamentarians in the American region and in Africa. So this is a long term process, a parliamentarian is hunger, for instance. Also, we have now long gone some way a working on addressing issues, such as land degradation from a technical point of view, and we are moving forward, but we need to do more. To do so, we have to scale, scale up these efforts to achieve, as our colleague Sasha mentioned sustainable management and also for systems. We are talking about producing food, and now we have complete lessons to apply as we move on into the future to improve those systems and the management of national resources. With these, I would like to stop here because I'm aware I'm running out of time. Thank you very much colleagues, and we will try to sum up all these lessons there all these experiences in a way that will be systematized all this information and made available to all of you and our partners over. Thank you. Thanks for that Xavier for that good list of takeaways from what has been a very rich session day. This does bring us to the end of webinar I want to thank all of our panelists, everyone who participated to make this a successful event today. I do recommend that in the chat. There is a link to a survey that you could complete to tell us how we did and how we can do better. We also received with a link to that survey as well as to the link to the recording of the webinar. So for those who may have missed some of it, you can, you can take a look there, want to apologize. If we were not able to answer everyone's questions, we really appreciate the fact that you, you took the time to post them. I mentioned that, as McKay said earlier, there's going to be another webinar of tomorrow, the 28th focusing on activities under the project in West Africa and Latin America, it will begin at three o'clock Rome. I'm not going to try to go through all the different time zones so I'm sure you can all put that. So that again thanks very much everyone and have a very good day. Thank you all. Thank you. Bye. Bye bye. Thank you everybody. Thank you. Bye bye everyone. Thank you all the best. Bye everybody. Thank you for the great webinar. Bye. I'm going to bed now. Bye. Thanks again. See you tomorrow.