The Eight African Development Forum, dubbed ADF-VIII, will take place on the 23-25 October in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The forum is a flagship event, established in 1999 by the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), is a multi-stakeholder forum for debating, discussing and initiating concrete strategies for Africa’s development. It is convened in collaboration with the African Union Commission and the African Development Bank and other key partners to establish an African–driven development agenda that reflects consensus and leads to specific programmes for implementation.

The forum brings together a large number of participants including Heads of State and Government, African member States, development partners, other United Nations agencies, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, academia, development practitioners, civil society organizations, the private sector, eminent policy and opinion leaders and other relevant stakeholders.

Theme

The theme of ADF-VIII is ‘Governing and harnessing natural resources for Africa’s development’. The forum will help to underscore the importance of natural resource governance in the economic and social transformation of Africa, including the fostering of growth and poverty reduction. It will also emphasize the economic, environmental, institutional and social policy frameworks that the sectors identified can effectively harness to meet Africa’s development goals. The discussions will be centered around:-

1. Mineral resources

2. Land resources

3. Fishery and aquaculture resources; and

4. Forest resources

Large-Scale Land Investments

The discussion on land resources and development will focus on one of the emerging concerns in Africa…..Large-scale Land-based investments. The effect of large scale investments on land in Africa has evoked a global discussion owing to its impact to land rights of African communities and food security within the continent. Not well handled, such investments have tended to be modeled around agreements highly skewed in favour of the investors, leaving little benefits to host governments and communities. This should be remedied so that the investments result in win-win outcomes for investors and the hosts. It is expected that the Addis discussion will bring out experiences and perspectives that can help lead to such outcomes. The topics for discussion will be:-

1. Implementing the AU Declaration on Land: Ensuring Land Based Investments Contribute to Sustainable Socio-economic Development

2. Assessing the Costs and Benefits of Land Deals in Africa

3. Guiding FDI Flows Toward Agricultural Transformation and Rural Development

4. Innovative Models for Transparent, Efficient, Equitable Large-scale Land-based Investments

5. Guidelines for Enhancing Community Participation and Ownership in Land-based Investments With a Special Focus on Marginalized and Vulnerable Groups

6. Can Customary Land Governance Facilitate Efficient and Equitable Large-scale Land Deals?

7. Empowering Women Through Equal Access, Control and Ownership of Land: Best Practices

8. A Focus on Youth Access, Ownership and Control of Land

9. A Framework for Integrating Environmental and Sustainability Conditions in Land Deals

10. Land Use Planning: A Prerequisite Large-scale Land-based Investment?

11. Monitoring Land-based Investments in Africa: Viable Frameworks, Data, Tools

12. Building Capacity for Transparent Land Deals that Lead to win-win Outcomes

It is hoped that the above topics will elicit robust discussion will help to chart an appropriate way forward for Large-scale Land-based Investments for Africa. This would be a good step towards realizing the commitments made under the African Union Declaration on Land Issues and Challenges in Africa. Some of the discussions from the forum on this subject will be shared on this blog in due course.