Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, OCTOBER 22-25, 2007 - meetings of he fifth meeting of the African Committee on Sustainable Development (ACSD-5), which included the African Regional Implementation Meeting for the sixteenth Session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD-16), organized by the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA).

The meeting convened under the theme “Transforming African Agriculture and Rural Economy for Sustainable Development.”

Throughout the meeting, delegates met in morning and afternoon plenary sessions to consider: a progress report on implementation of the 2006-07 programme of work of the Food Security and Sustainable Development Division of the ECA; a proposed new mandate for the African Committee on Sustainable Development (ACSD or the Committee); and implementation in Africa of the sustainable development agenda, particularly in relation to the CSD-16 themes of agriculture and rural development, drought and desertification, land, and Africa. Additionally, delegates met in two drafting committees, which addressed the draft African Regional Statement for CSD-16 and the revised mandate of the Committee.

Regarding implementation of sustainable development in relation to the CSD-16 themes, delegates considered four review reports prepared by the ECA Secretariat with the guidance of the ACSD-4 Bureau. After proposing amendments, delegates accepted the revised reports, which will be forwarded to CSD-16 for consideration.

The meeting resulted in three other key outputs: Delegates adopted the African Regional Statement to CSD-16 on Agriculture and Rural Development, Land, Drought and Desertification, and Africa. As part of the agreed process of ECA repositioning, they also agreed to a new draft mandate for the Committee, which will be considered in April 2009 by the Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, which is the governing body of the ECA. The new draft mandate means that with the end of ACSD-5, and with the adoption of this new mandate, the ACSD will be reconstituted and known as . If adoption of this mandate proceeds as planned, the next biennial review, in the form of CFSSD-1, will be held in Addis Ababa in October 2009. Finally, delegates approved the report of the meeting.

OK - talks and more talks - so what is Africa’s program? Is Africa shelving the concept of Sustainable Development in favor of Food Security? Was not Sustainable Development intended also to provide for Food Security?

Of interest we found the following:

Land in the Context of Sustainable Urbanization in Africa: Alioune Badiane, Director, UN-HABITAT Regional Office for Africa and the Arab States, stated that there is no sustainable development without sustainable urbanization, and elaborated six reasons why land issues must not be driven by agriculture and rural development alone:
a total of 55% of Africans will be living in urban areas by 2050 and urban areas are stimulants of innovation and national economic growth;

given that 77% of Africa’s city dwellers live in slums, urban land is subject to disputes and is at the root of the slum phenomenon, it is necessary to ensure that urban land works for all;

land is a source of many conflicts in Africa and resolving land conflicts has the potential to realize social stability

given that land is a fixed resource that constitutes up to 70% of the wealth of developing countries, its availability to all, including the poor, can unleash dead capital yet its cost has increased considerably;

in addition to the common freehold and customary approaches to securing land tenure, additional innovative mechanisms can be developed if land rights are defined along a continuum; and

land is viewed and understood from various dimensions, thus an integrated, coordinated, multifaceted and multi-stakeholder approach is required in addressing its related concerns.

Senegal highlighted the need for territorial urban planning and the creation of secondary cities to reduce overcrowding in informal settlements. UN-HABITAT noted its intervention in real estate problems in war-torn areas and the Democratic Republic of Congo suggested the Secretariat facilitate the setting up of an information sharing e-group for interested participants. Women’s Land and Water Rights in Southern Africa suggested new regimes to replace the foreign ones governing land tenure systems in Africa. Egypt proposed referencing the education of farmers and the provision of relevant guidelines for those concerned with SARD (Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development), together with improved relations between the private sector and farmers. FARA (Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa) attributed rural to urban migration and the lack of sustainable management of soils to inadequate facilities in rural areas. UN-HABITAT responded that it is already involved in the creation of real estate policies in countries affected by conflict, and alerted delegates to its published comprehensive review on Islamic land law.
Further on LAND issues - Discussion on the constraints and lessons learned under this theme concerned proposals to include other significant issues, of which two attracted particular discussion. Zimbabwe suggested that because “most of Africa’s civil society organizations, particularly NGOs, are owned and/or foreign funded,” their aspirations do not always tally with those of governments. Ghana concurred with Zimbabwe on the challenge that whereas civil society organizations are evident in governance activities, they are less involved in field activities on land issues. A representative of the women’s Major Group suggested, and Zimbabwe agreed, to reflect an amended text capturing this constraint in the more general section on the review of Africa.

The other matter, raised by UN-HABITAT and Sudan, concerned an over-emphasis on agricultural productivity in the conceptualization of land, pointing to land conflicts associated with competing land uses such as human settlements and pastoralism. Sudan agreed with UN-HABITAT that when such issues are raised in policy venues considering human settlements, they are dismissed as land-related concerns. They stressed the need to address them within this context.
In the discussion on lessons learned, UN-HABITAT proposed amending the recommendation supporting the use of customary land tenure systems so that potential negative effects such as gender, inter-generational, and insider-outsider discrimination, which can hinder investment, are addressed during their administration.

South Africa proposed, and delegates agreed, to recast the message regarding high reliance on technical assistance for land reform so as to highlight the potential negative effects of external technical assistance if it is poorly integrated into the national context.