Report on Lunch Meeting “Dealing strategically with land issues”

On Monday May 12, 2014, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, LANDac and the Food & Business Knowledge Platform organized a lunch meeting: “Dealing strategically with land issues – the case of Benin”.

The lunch meeting was opened by Frits van der Wal (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) who gave an introduction about the Ministry’s focal point on land governance.

Subsequently, the case of Benin was discussed: recent developments concerning land rights and the role these rights play in land governance were the central theme.

Three presentations were given: you can download two of them here (in Dutch):

• ‘Landrechten in Benin – van ver gekomen, nog ver te gaan’ by Ruud van der Helm from the Dutch Embassy in Benin (PDF);
• ‘Practical and juridical feasibility of land legislation’ by Frank Lankhorst from The Hague Institute for Global Justice; and
• ‘Foncier Communes Bénin’ by Frans Olthof from GBKN, consultant for VGN International (PDF).

After the presentations a discussion followed to explore knowledge questions around the theme of land issues and land governance. Those knowledge questions are a first basis for possible future elaboration within LANDac and the Food & Business Knowledge Platform.

Download the detailed report on the lunch meeting (PDF).