In Cameroon, the adoption of LANDex gives hope

At the end of a ground-breaking workshop held on January 26th in Yaoundé, LANDex was officially adopted as one of the legal, regulatory, and technical tools available to land tenure actors for better management of land and land tenure conflicts. LANDex is a land governance monitoring tool called the Global Land Governance Index.

The session allowed the stakeholders to learn about LANDex indicators and to propose a participatory and multi-stakeholder approach to carry out their information. Another major advance is that the LANDex has gained legitimacy. Indeed, the final communiqué of the workshop mentioned the need to strengthen the initiatives of consultation between the different administrations sharing the land issue through the establishment of a reference situation in terms of land governance using the LANDex tool. It is also anticipated that this tool should be among the legal, regulatory, and technical tools made available to Traditional Chiefs to strengthen their participation in land and land conflict management.

"Land Week" in Cameroon

The workshop is part of the "Land Week" in Cameroon which took place from January 25 to 29. The 2021 edition was placed under the theme "Local Land Management: Challenges and Lessons" and was co-organised by the Ministry of Domains, Cadastre and Land Affairs and the LandCam project implemented by the Centre for Environment and Development (CED), the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and the Network to Combat Hunger (RELUFA), with the financial support of the European Union.

The Land Week brought together more than 150 participants from a variety of backgrounds including government officials, parliamentarians, representatives of decentralized local governments, members of the diplomatic corps, traditional authorities, representatives of the private sector, development partners, academics, representatives of civil society organizations, representatives of indigenous peoples and local communities, etc. The event was attended by more than 150 participants.

The meeting mobilised the state with the effective presence of several ministers during the opening ceremony including the Minister of Land Registry and Land Affairs (MINDCAF), the Minister of Territorial Administration, the Minister of Forestry and Wildlife, the Minister of Livestock, Fisheries, and Animal Industries and the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development.

The National Strategy for Engagement (NES) on Land supported by the International Land Coalition (ILC) provided an opportunity to organise this session, which was attended by more than 70 participants. Developed by the Coalition and its partners, the LANDex is a set of 33 indicators organised around the 10 ILC commitments for people-centred land governance. Strongly aligned with indicators already promoted by other existing tools for monitoring land governance such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Voluntary Guidelines, Prindex, etc. these indicators cover three levels including the legal framework, implementation of legislation, and impact or perception. It is also a tool that promotes democracy by going beyond public data with the integration of alternative data or data produced by citizens. While some indicators are based on the use of national and international databases, others, to be more precise, are exclusively at the national level with the mobilisation of land tenure actors and considering the diversity of perspectives (government, civil society, local community, private sector, research...).

Global tool

This adoption of the LANDex by the public authorities as well as other categories of actors involved in land management in Cameroon as a tool to be used to establish the reference situation is strongly welcomed and appreciated by the ILC which envisions it as the beginning of legitimisation and appropriation of the tool by the states. As a reminder, after a test phase in Senegal, Colombia, and Nepal, the tool has entered a phase of scaling up with its implementation in about forty countries around the world including ten in Africa.