THEME: Intergenerational Solidarity: Creating a World for All Ages
TOPIC: The role of youths in responding to land governance, property rights, climate change while building intergenerational solidarity as a contribution to achieving the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and the Agenda 2030.
Background
The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) is a Regional Economic Community (REC) of the African Union. Member countries include: Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda. IGAD’s mission is “to assist and complement the efforts of the member countries through increased cooperation to achieve food security and environmental protection; promotion and maintenance of peace and security and humanitarian affairs; and economic cooperation and integration”1. IGAD’s activities consist mainly of policy support, information and knowledge sharing, capacity development and research, and promoting the uptake of science and technology.
IGAD is mandated under the AU Declaration on Land Issues and Challenges to serve its Member States using its convening capacity to facilitate dialogue, providing technical support for policy development and implementation, and building capacity through experience sharing and knowledge exchange and cross-pollination.
IGAD through the Land Governance Programme developed Land Governance Business Plan 2020-2030 with four 4 strategic objectives: a) Land administration in IGAD region is more efficient, harmonized and gender-inclusive; b) Enable sustainable development through strategic gender-sensitive and conflict-sensitive approach to land use and management; c) Increased Member States capacity to leverage land (rural, peri-urban, and urban) for economic transformation and; d) Reduced barriers and enhanced protection of women and youth’s rights to land in the public and private sphere.
The IGAD Youth and Land Conference 2022, lies at the heart of reducing barriers to youth inclusion in land governance and fostering intergenerational solidarity for improving land governance in the IGAD Region towards sustainable development. Over the years, the IGAD Youth and Land have taken several initiatives to enhance youth participation in the land sector. In furtherance of this quest, IGAD together with her partners, the International Land coalition – Africa (ILC – Africa), Youth Initiative for Land in Africa (YILAA) and Habitat for Humanity International will commemorate the International Youth Day by holding the IGAD Youth and Land Conference 11-12 August 2022. This conference will be an online event.
OBJECTIVES OF THE CONFERENCE
- To Increase the body of available evidence and facilitate the exchange of views through dialogue on intergenerational solidarity for youth inclusion in land governance.
- To explore ways in which young people can leverage the land resource for employment, sustainable and equitable sharing of land resources that contribute to the attainment of the AU Agenda 2063 and Agenda 2030.
- To highlight innovation and innovative ideas by youth on land governance, access to decent housing and building resilient cities and communities while addressing intergenerational gaps.
Thematic area 1: Secure Land Rights for Youth: Key to Attaining Climate Change Adaptation, Resilience, and intergenerational equity in land and property rights.
Today’s youth are the future of tomorrow. Therefore, youth inclusion in land governance and security of tenure are paramount as a pathway to addressing some of the world’s challenges, such as climate change. Collective and individual land tenure insecurity among the youth in the face of the climate crisis makes them more vulnerable, contributing to increased youth marginalization, migration, frustrations, and economic disempowerment.
When youth are denied access, ownership and control over land, it is impossible to foresee a lively and dynamic adoption of efforts to combat and adapt to climate change in many regions in Africa. Efforts to reduce intergenerational gaps while bolstering climate adaptability calls for equitable access and control over land for the youth. This means youth must be at the forefront of decision-making processes on matters that affect them.
Inclusive land governance will provide millions of young people with vital, creative, and inventive opportunities in climate action and sustainable land use, allowing them to earn and participate in wealth creation while supporting growth and development across continents. This space aims to go beyond tokenism for the youth; for many decades, youth have engaged in the lower rung where they are used to push the Adults Agenda (The Hart 1992) and have been left behind in participatory decision-making spaces concerning land, climate, and many other resource sectors. The youth Agenda must be for the youth and driven by the youth.
The Conference seeks to provide proactive actions and mechanisms for youth engagement, representation, and participatory democracy in land governance; integration of technology and digitalization; claim youth space and advocate for the security of tenure as preconditions for climate mitigation and adaptation, highlighting the power of partnership for transformative change.
This call is for,
- A young person below 35 years.
- Expertise in the confluence of tenure security, climate change, and youth access to land and its resources.
- Has created and piloted tools, methods or approaches of engagement and addressing climate change and land governance.
Desired Output,
- Make a presentation for the International Youth Day, 11th August 2022.
- Write a blog/Vlog sharing or rallying fellow young people on how innovation or explorable opportunities for young people and IGAD Youth and Land and all partners to integrate the talent.
Thematic area 2: Integrated Innovation for collaboration in land governance.
The IGAD region, made of eight countries from the richly heterogenous continent of Africa, continues to play a lead role in the development and diffusion of policy frameworks with regard to governance of land for poverty reduction, and capacity building against a myriad of cross-border socio-economic challenges. Specifically, the AU Declaration on Land Issues and Challenges in Africa with recourse from other eight global and regional frameworks have provided the core programs and priority areas to address and exterminate various land policy issues and constraints within the region.
Through digital and creative innovation, young people in the region are demonstrating resilience against the consequences of increasing climate threats, escalating conflicts and the recent COVID-19 pandemic impacting the IGAD region and African continent’s land policy implementation and capacity improvement programs at large. The goal of this session is to highlight and provide the existing young talent with a platform to share, showcase, teach and mobilize fellow young people on how practical and integrative the existing policies and tools can be fitted to benefit young people in gaining maximum benefit from land as a resource.
The call is for:
A young person between the age of 23-35 years;
- Has created and piloted tools, methods or concepts engaging components of land governance, productivity, and risk management with a bias towards youth and land governance.
- Published research on the current innovative trends, opportunities and challenges tackling a component within any of the current 8 governance frameworks.
- A youth leader advocating for policy & digital integration.
Desired Output:
- Make a presentation for the International Youth Day, 11th August 2022
- Write a blog/vlog sharing or rallying fellow young people on how innovation or explorable opportunities for young people and IGAD Youth and Land and all partners to integrate the talent.
Thematic area 3: The role of the youth in promoting access to decent housing, building resilient cities and communities while addressing intergenerational gaps.
The United Nations’ sustainable development goals provide for the equitable access to adequate housing, provision of human settlements that have improved educational, health and economic outcomes for their residents which is essential for sustainable development and ensuring no one, and no place, is left behind. The New Urban Agenda mentions land multiple times. It commits to promoting increased tenure security for all, recognizes the diversity of tenure types, and emphasizes the importance of developing “fit-for-purpose and age-, gender-, and environment-responsive solutions within the continuum of land and property rights, with particular attention to land tenure security for women including young women as a key to their empowerment, including through effective administrative systems. In addition, the New Urban Agenda emphasizes that access to land is one of the critical requirements for low-income urban dwellers to achieve economic stability and social mobility.
The goals recognize the need to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable. The target is to ensure, by 2030, access for all to adequate, safe, and affordable housing and basic services and upgrade slums. Integrated housing frameworks that support economic, social and environmental policy planning and infrastructure linkages across the urban-rural ecosystem, building resilient cities and communities.
The call is for,
- A young person between the age of 23-35 years.
- Expertise in youth and access to decent housing, shelter, and urbanization.
- Has created and piloted tools, methods, or approaches of youth engagement in the promotion of access to decent housing, shelter, and sustainable urbanization.
Desired Output,
- Make a presentation for the International Youth Day, 11th August 2022.
- Write a blog/Vlog sharing or rallying fellow young people on how innovation or explorable opportunities for young people and IGAD YL and all partners to integrate the talent.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
This call for presentations (paper, video, pictorials, case studies, best practices presentation) invites international scholars and presenters, especially those from the African and IGAD region with expertise in the subject matter to present abstracts of their presentations covering the three thematic areas.
- Abstracts should be written in English and French and be between 250 to 300 words
- Interested authors should send resume of not more than 250 words with their previous publications and contact details: email address and phone number.
- Submissions should indicate the theme their presentation covers among the three themes of the conference.
- All submissions will be peer reviewed and successful presenters invited to prepare a presentation
- For paper presentations they should be not more than 4000 words
- video presentations will have a limit of 10 minutes.
- Any other form of presentation will also be limited to 10 minutes.
- Successful presenters will be given a 15-minute opportunity to present the paper/video/ at the conference on 11th August 2022.
- Successful presentations will be published in different platforms for learning purposes.
Please send your abstracts to this email address: omar.siraji@igad.int . Copy to jane@landcoalition.info and GAnanda@habitat.org on or before 20th July 2022
For further information about the conference and this call, Kindly contact, Omar Siraji Hassan, on EMAIL: omar.siraji@igad.int
For more information visit: https://igad.int/ or https://land.igad.int/
IMPORTANT DATES
Deadline for submission of abstracts: 27th July 2022
Notification of acceptance of abstracts: 30th July 2022
Deadline for final full paper submission: 3rd August 2022
Deadline for power point presentation: 5th August 2022
PARTNERS
This conference is organized by IGAD in partnership with the international land coalition (ILC), Youth Initiative for Land in Africa (YILAA) and Habitat for Humanity International
Download attached document in PDF below.
