ILC reached its 20th year as a diverse and growing network and adopted a new Strategy for 2016-21. Over two decades, members of the Coalition have worked together and made significant progress towards ensuring that the rights and dignity of those who live on and from the land are protected. We marked some of these milestones on a commemorative timeline.

Not only did the Forum, co-hosted by the Government of Senegal, the Land Policy Initiative (LPI),and civil society organisations, create opportunities for participants to learn from, and contribute to, land governance successes and challenges in West Africa and globally, but it also served as a launchpad for new initiatives. Among others, we celebrated the FIRST ILC AWARD, aimed at giving recognition and global visibility to the work of our members.

Our declaration comes at a crucial time as our nations agree on universal Sustainable Development Goals. We seek a strong commitment to the promotion, protection and monitoring of land and natural resource rights in the post-2015 development agenda, consonant with their vital importance to a world without hunger, poverty and insecurity, and guided by the fundamental principle of leaving no one behind. …

20 years after the creation of the ILC, we reaffirm our commitment as a Coalition and the mission which we have set ourselves. We pledge continued efforts and collaborative and timely action towards the themes at the heart of the Forum: a world that is inclusive, just, and sustainable.

With the meeting taking place in the heart of Latin America, a region that has experienced a radical transformation of its agricultural sector and rural landscape, the Antigua Forum offered a truly unique opportunity for ILC members and partners to learn and share experiences on land governance issues. For the host country, the event was the first space of constructive dialogue among governmental representatives and farmers organisations with both involved in co-hosting the event. The conference culminated in the adoption of the Antigua Declaration, which recognises the multiple dimensions of land and supports models of development based on local food and natural resource management systems.

The Assembly was co-hosted by the National Federation of Communal Forests and Pastures of Albania and the Government of Albania. Through the Tirana Declaration, members called on all actors to actively promote pro-poor, people-centred and environmentally sustainable governance of land and other natural resources. They strongly denounced all forms of land grabbing and in a spirit of mutual exchange, commonly defined the practice for future reference. Members approved the Strategic Framework for 2011–2015, which aimed to catalyse partnerships to strengthen commitments to a people-centred land governance agenda.

The Conference, co-hosted by the Government of Nepal and a consortium of Nepal civil society organisations, was held in a post-conflict period, providing participants with the opportunity to rethink old assumptions, and chart a new path. In an atmosphere of mutual exchange, through the Kathmandu Declaration, members reiterated that providing secure access to land is a vital step to finding lasting peaceful solutions to addressing rural poverty and resource conflicts. The ILC Charter and Governance Framework was also approved by members.

The Assembly was the first on the African continent, and came when Uganda was developing a National Land Policy to create an inclusive and pro-poor framework. The Assembly, co-hosted by ILC and the Uganda Land Alliance (ULA), succeeded in setting out a vision of a dynamic and member-led coalition and adopted the Strategic Framework 2007-2011, to serve as a central reference point.

The theme of the Assembly, “Land is Life”, reflected the idea that land is more than simply a productive asset or destination for investment. Bolivia as a venue provided international solidarity to the Government of Bolivia and to civil society organisations in support of their joint efforts to advance the land reform agenda in their country. The Assembly’s “Declaration for Collective Action” provided the foundation for the policy and advocacy work of the Coalition until the next Assembly in 2007.

The ILC’s first gathering of its small but growing community of members brought about a commitment for both shared benefits and responsibilities. The Assembly closed with a defining mission and a sense
of common history that could be used as a proud basis for inviting others to “join. It was here that the Popular Coalition to Eradicate Hunger was renamed the International Land Coalition, in recognition of its strategic focus on land access issues.