The international community has developed various standards to be used as a framework for agricultural investment projects that affect land and property rights. These include the voluntary guidelines on responsible governance of land tenure, fi sheries and forests in the context of national food security (the Voluntary Guidelines) approved by the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) in 2012, and the Principles for responsible investment in agriculture and food systems (PRAI) adopted in 2014.

These principles are intended to tackle the problems caused by land appropriation and dispossession and mitigate their impact on local populations. While progress has been made in terms of acknowledging the need to recognise and protect legitimate land rights (both formal and informal) and consult and obtain the consent of affected communities, the real issue now is ensuring that these principles are put into practice.

This briefing note summarises the work done by the French Cooperation to address this challenge.

This document is also available is French here.