We Belong to the Land – CIDSE

We Belong to the Land

10 Years of the Tenure Guidelines: States Must Address Rising Inequalities and Enact Agrarian Reform to Realize the Right to Land

CIDSE joins more than 100 organisations of small-scale food producers, Indigenous Peoples, workers, urban communities and civil society, calling on States and the United Nations to comply with their obligations to realize the right to land.



The statement We Belong to the Land marks the tenth anniversary of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security. The adoption of the guidelines by the United Nations in 2012 saw the formal grounding of natural resource governance in human rights and the international recognition of the right to land. Grassroots organisations have used the guidelines to advance their struggles for social, environmental, gender and intergenerational justice.

However, ten years on, communities around the world still face land grabbing, exclusion and violence. The concentration of control over land and other natural resources in the hands of corporations, financial investors and other powerful actors has reached alarming rates.

This statement was released ahead of the FAO and the Committee for World Food Security (CFS) official event for the Tenure Guidelines’ anniversary on 27 May 2022.

Contact: Jose Emmanuel Yap, Land Rights Officer (yap(at)cidse.org)


Cover photo: A pearl millet farmer with part of her harvest, ICRISAT, Creative Commons.

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