The official launch of LANDac II will be held in the afternoon of Wednesday October 26, 2016 at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in The Hague. The programme includes a lunch lecture and a round table discusssion.

Programme

• 12.15 – 12.45    Lunch with sandwiches
• 12.45 – 13.00    Welcome 
• 13.00 – 14.00    Lunch Lecture
• 14.00 – 14.30    Coffee
• 14.30 – 15.15    Round table discussion
• 15.15 – 15.45    Break-out sessions
• 15.45 – 16.30    Reporting back and conclusions
• 16.30 – 17.30    Drinks

Lunch Lecture: Are current protests in Ethiopia fuelled by land issues?

Maru Shete and Jan van de Haar reflect on the current situation in Ethiopia, drawing from their own research and business experiences.

Maru Shete is a LANDac PhD candidate (who will be defending his dissertation on October 25^th at Leiden University); Maru’s dissertation is entitled Economic and agricultural transformation through large-scale farming. Impacts of large-scale farming on local economic development, household food security and the environment in Ethiopia.

Jan van de Haar is a Dutch agri-entrepreneur based in Ethiopia; Jan is hugely committed to support new and innovative ways that assist Ethiopian farmers in producing more and better food, in a way that is equitable and sustainable for local populations.

Round table discussion: Land governance and the SDGs – setting the agenda

Facilitator: Annelies Zoomers (Chair of LANDac and Professor of International Development Studies at Utrecht University)

Danielle Hirsch (BothEnds), Margriet Hartman (Royal Haskoning DHV), Eric Smaling (Member of Parliament and agronomist), Maru Shete (PhD candidate), and Barbara Codispoti (Oxfam Novib) look back on the transformations that have taken place in the land governance field since the land grab debate began a decade ago, before defining new challenges and reflecting upon how these can be met in the years to come.