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A people-centered call to action: Promoting secure tenure rights for inclusive land governance, climate resilience, and conflict resolution

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8 months ago

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We, the members of the International Land Coalition Africa, while reaffirming our support to the Global Land Forum 2025 Declaration, issue this urgent call to action, united in our conviction that secure land rights are a foundation for transformative agrarian reform, resilient and sustainable agri-food systems, climate justice, and the dismantling of extractive, exclusionary models of development.

Across Africa and the world, land is not a commodity, land is life. It shapes identity, culture, food, energy, shelter, and survival. Yet, land is increasingly contested, commodified, and concentrated, fueling inequality, marginalization, and conflict. Climate change and biodiversity collapse deepen these injustices, disproportionately affecting Indigenous Peoples (namely hunter gatherers, forest dwellers, pastoralists… in line with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples-UNDRIP) and Local Communities, smallholder farmers, victims of colonialism, youth, and women, those least responsible for this crisis.

The livelihoods of these communities are at risk due to disruption of their food and livelihood systems. Secure tenure rights are essential for inclusive governance, ecological stewardship, and equitable access to land and natural resources. They empower communities to invest in sustainable agriculture, participate in democratic land governance processes, safeguard biodiversity, and pursue climate adaptation and mitigation rooted in justice.

The urgency for inclusive land governance has never been greater. Resource scarcity, land and water conflicts, and the impacts of climate change are colliding with flawed governance systems and unchecked extractive development. These dynamics act as threat multipliers, undermining peace, increasing displacement, and accelerating environmental degradation.

Yet, hope endures. Across continents, communities are organizing to reclaim their rights, restore degraded ecosystems, transform food systems, and chart pathways away from fossil fuel dependency and exploitative land use. What they need now is bold political will, transformative policies, and genuine partnerships rooted in justice and solidarity.

From commitment to bold action.

We reaffirm our collective commitment to advance secure land tenure for all as a lever for inclusive land governance, food sovereignty, ecological restoration, sustainable land use, energy justice, and conflict prevention. Secure tenure fosters stability and a sense of belonging, enabling communities to sustainably steward their land, defend biodiversity, and engage meaningfully in shaping their futures.

We call on all actors to act urgently, courageously, and in alignment with the aspirations of communities who are at the forefront of land and climate justice.

1. Governments and policymakers: lead on land governance and transformative just systems

  • Champion equitable land redistribution that uplifts smallholder farmers, women, youth, Indigenous Peoples, and pastoralist communities.
  • Decolonize land laws and governance systems to reflect the rights of Indigenous Peoples as well as Local Communities Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities knowledge systems, and their lived realities.
  • Recognize and legally protect customary and collective tenure systems as safeguards against conflict, displacement, and ecological breakdown.
  • Strengthen protection of land and environmental defenders from violence, criminalization, and impunity.
  • Ensure that land-based investments are rooted in fair policies and laws, transparent governance, uphold tenure arrangements and land rights, improved livelihoods and take into account the FPIC principles.
  • Urgently solve land-related court backlogs, enforce land related court decisions and invest in alternative dispute resolution and alternative justice systems grounded in community norms.
  • Align national land governance with regional and global frameworks (such as the Agenda 2063 of the African Union (AU), the AU Framework Policy on pastoralism, the Voluntary Guidelines on land governance, etc.) to advance land justice and climate action.

2. Civil society movements: drive people-centred transformation

  • Mobilize land policies rooted in human rights, agroecology, and the self-determination of rural communities.
  • Elevate the leadership of women, youth, Indigenous Peoples and pastoral communities in land and climate governance.
  • Promote family farming and community-based food systems as anchors of agri-food transformation and biodiversity protection.
  • Empower youth through education, organizing, and innovation in land justice and regenerative economies.
  • Strengthen grassroots movements and connect them with regional and global platforms for solidarity, learning, and advocacy.
  • Embark on advocacy actions to protect and defend their land, natural resources and territorial rights
  • Connect struggles and actions of solidarity
  • Lobby other actors support to advance their land and territorial rights.

3. Private sector: invest in land, people, and the planet, ethically and transparently

  • Commit to responsible investment practices anchored in free, prior, and informed consent.
  • Reject all forms of land grabbing, forced evictions, and extractive development.
  • Collaborate with communities to advance regenerative agriculture, landscape restoration, and fair, inclusive value chains.
  • Ensure transparency, accountability, and equity across land-based business operations and supply chains.
  • Transition away from extractive energy models toward just, locally rooted renewable solutions.

4. International organizations and donors: support long-term, justice-oriented transformation.

  • Foster inclusive, multi-stakeholder processes to co-create pathways for sustainable land governance and transformative just food systems, agrarian reform, food system resilience, and just energy transition.
  • Provide sustained financial, technical, and political support for land and tenure reform led by communities and civil society.
  • Center local knowledge and voices in international land, food, and climate dialogues.
  • Protect and amplify land and environmental defenders and ensure accountability for violations.

5. Individuals: stay informed, engaged and in solidarity.

  • Learn about the intersections of land justice, climate change, biodiversity, and sustainable food systems.
  • Stand in solidarity with communities defending land, ecosystems, and livelihoods.
  • Use your voice, networks, and platforms to challenge land injustices and advocate for just transitions.

Together for a just future

The journey toward land governance and transformative just food systems and a just response to the climate and biodiversity crises, begins with people, those who live on and from the land. Let us listen to their voices, uphold their land rights, and act in solidarity to ensure land is governed for dignity, sustainability, and peace.

This is our moment to act boldly. Land cannot wait. Communities cannot wait. The planet cannot wait.

Source: International Land Coalition-ILC

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NGO WORK

Peace in DRC Requires More than Symbolic US Sanctions on Rwanda

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2 days ago

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March 12, 2026

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  • On March 2, 2026, the US Treasury imposed sanctions on the Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) and four of its senior officials following their “blatant violations of the Washington Peace Accords.”
  • The step remains symbolic and unlikely to meaningfully deter the actors exploiting Congolese minerals who are fueling the war.
  • The sanctions neither affect the deals made by the US with critical mineral companies tied to the Rwandan government nor does it impact American foreign assistance to the country.
  • As long as the US continues to support Rwanda as a business hub for refinery and reexport of smuggled Congolese minerals, there will be no incentive for RDF/M23 to return valuable mines and lands to the Congolese and end the conflict.

Oakland, CA – On March 2, 2026, the US Treasury imposed sanctions on the Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) and four of its senior officials following their “blatant violations of the Washington Peace Accords” signed between Rwanda and the DRC in December 2025.

The RDF has been actively supporting, training, and fighting alongside its proxy, the March 23 Movement (M23), waging a war that has led to countless deaths, mass atrocities and displacement in eastern DRC. Together, they have seized the provincial capitals of Goma and Bukavu and strategic mining sites in South and North Kivu.

“Sanctioning the RDF is an important step but is unlikely to meaningfully deter the actors exploiting Congolese minerals that are fueling the war,” said Frédéric Mousseau, Policy Director of the Oakland Institute. “As long as the US continues to support Rwanda as a business hub for refinery and reexport of smuggled Congolese minerals, there is no incentive for RDF/M23 to return valuable mines and lands and end the conflict that has been decimating the Congolese people for over three decades.”

While applying sanctions, the US continues to make deals with critical mineral companies tied to the Rwandan government. In May 2025, Rwanda’s Trinity Metals signed a letter of intent with the US Department of State to establish a new supply chain of tin from Rwanda to the US. In October 2025, Rwanda exported tungsten to the US for the first time through a partnership involving Trinity Metals, Pennsylvania-based Global Tungsten & Powders, and the international commodities trading firm Traxys. Under this ongoing deal, between four and seven containers of tungsten concentrate will be shipped every quarter to the US for two years, offering a strategic alternative source for a mineral largely produced by China.

According to the most recently available ownership information, Ngali Holdings holds 5 percent of Trinity Metals and 25 percent of the company’s Rutongo tin mines. State-owned with reported ties to the RDF, Ngali Holdings was established in 2015 to undertake the “exploration, extraction/exploitation and commercialization of strategic mineral resources.” While the RDF’s minority stake in Trinity Metals does not make the company eligible for sanctions, it shows the limitations of the sanctions’ overall impact. Rwanda’s role in the US plan to seize control of Congolese minerals remains intact.

The US sanctions also fail to confront the massive financial benefits Rwanda/M23 gain from occupying eastern DRC. Since M23 seized the Rubaya mine in eastern DRC in 2024, the group has ensured a monopoly on the export of coltan to Rwanda to collect an estimated US$800,000 monthly from the taxation of coltan production and trade. Rebels have also funneled gold into Rwanda, driving a record US$2 billion in exports in 2025.

Moreover, Rwanda still receives substantial foreign assistance from the US, its largest bilateral donor,  with just under US$200 million in 2024 and US$174 million for 2025 – a partial, not fully reported, estimate. With a US$3.37 billion World Bank portfolio for a country of just 14 million people, Rwanda is also among the highest per-capita recipients of World Bank financing –  receiving almost four times more per capita than DRC. Horizon Construction, a consortium with links to the RDF, has reportedly been awarded several contracts as part of the Bank’s multi-million dollar road improvement project that is active today.

In October 2025, the Oakland Institute released Shafted: The Scramble for Critical Minerals in the DRC, warning that US diplomatic initiatives, including the Rwanda-DRC peace deal – were being used to advance mineral extraction interests under the guise of bringing peace to the region. The Institute further documented how the RDF Commander in chief, President Paul Kagame has been a champion of impunity despite repeatedly violating peace and ceasefire agreements over the years.

“Rwanda’s violations of the Washington Accord and continued occupation of DRC point to the inherent contradictions of the US-brokered “peace deal” added Mousseau. “The deal granted Rwanda privileged access to Congolese resources and a key role in their refining and reexport – a reward for an aggressor who has made hundreds of millions of dollars from the plundering of Congolese minerals. This impunity and injustice can’t bring peace to Congo,” he concluded.

Source: www.oaklandinstitute.org/

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NGO WORK

US-DRC Strategic Partnership Agreement Faces Constitutional Challenge in Court

Published

1 month ago

on

February 6, 2026

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Top photo: President Donald Trump participates in a trilateral signing ceremony of a peace and economic agreement with President Paul Kagame of the Republic of Rwanda and President Felix Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Thursday, December 4, 2025, at the United States Peace Institute in Washington, D.C. (Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok)

  • In a landmark legal action, Congolese lawyers and human rights defenders have filed a constitutional challenge against the US-DRC Strategic Partnership Agreement, signed on December 4, 2025, in Washington, DC.
  • A recent report from the Oakland Institute exposed how the US-brokered “peace” deal between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is the latest US maneuver to control Congolese critical minerals.
  • While US mining firms secure privileged access to vast reserves of copper, cobalt, lithium, and tantalum, promises of peace and security remain hollow as Rwanda and its proxy M23 armed group continue to occupy large swaths of mineral-rich territory in eastern DRC.

Oakland, CA – In a landmark legal action in January 2026, Congolese lawyers and human rights defenders filed a constitutional challenge against the US-DRC Strategic Partnership Agreement, signed on December 4, 2025, in Washington, DC.

Signed alongside the US-brokered “peace deal” between Rwanda and the DRC – known as the Washington Accord – the agreement grants the United States preferential access to Congolese mineral reserves and requires the DRC to amend its national laws and potentially its Constitution. The agreement further establishes a joint governance mechanism that gives Washington a direct role in overseeing the management of Congo’s mining sector.

The lawyers argue that the agreement violates the Congolese Constitution, which requires that any amendment to national laws and/or the Constitution be subject to democratic review and approval by Parliament or by popular referendum.  In particular, the agreement contravenes Article 214 of the DRC’s Constitution, which governs the ratification of international agreements that alter domestic law. The petition also contends that the agreement violates Articles 9 and 217, which enshrine national sovereignty over natural resources, as well as Article 12, which guarantees equality before the law.

“By filing this case with the Constitutional Court, we are assuming our responsibility as Congolese citizens to protect the sovereignty of our country and safeguard our patrimony for future generations,” said Attorney Jean-Marie Kalonji, one of the plaintiffs.

In October 2025, the Oakland Institute released Shafted: The Scramble for Critical Minerals in the DRC, warning that US diplomatic initiatives, including the Rwanda-DRC peace deal — were being used to advance mineral extraction interests under the guise of bringing peace to the region.

“The Partnership Agreement makes it clear that these concerns were legitimate. The Congolese people have been sidelined, with an agreement focused on extraction and exploitation and a peace deal that shockingly overlooks the need for justice and for holding perpetrators accountable,” said Anuradha Mittal, Executive Director of the Oakland Institute. “While the US mining firms secure privileged access to Congo’s vast reserves of critical minerals, promises of peace and security remain hollow with Rwanda and M23 still occupying large swaths of land in mineral-rich eastern DRC,” Mittal continued.

In mid-January 2026, the DRC government took a major step towards implementing the agreement by providing Washington with a shortlist of state-owned assets — including manganese, copper, cobalt, gold and lithium projects – marked for potential US investment.

The lawyers and human rights defenders behind this case are calling for a nationwide mobilization to defend Congolese sovereignty and are urging the international community to support their legal action and uphold international law at a time when it faces an unprecedented threat.

“The Oakland Institute will continue to stand by its partners to support this mobilization and promote a Congolese-led path for peace, justice, and prosperity for the DRC instead of Trump’s hyperbole of peace and security accomplished through its mineral deal,” concluded Mittal.

Source: oaklandinstitute.org

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NGO WORK

Violations against Kenya’s indigenous Ogiek condemned yet again by African Court

Published

2 months ago

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January 13, 2026

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Minority Rights Group welcomes today’s decision by the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights in the case of Ogiek people v. Government of Kenya. The decision reiterates previous findings of more than a decade of unremedied violations against the indigenous Ogiek people, centred on forced evictions from their ancestral lands in the Mau forest.

The Court showed clear impatience concerning Kenya’s failure to implement two landmark rulings in favour of the indigenous Ogiek people: in a 2017 judgment, that their human rights had been violated by Kenya’s denial of access to their land, and in a 2022 judgment, which ordered Kenya to pay nearly 160 million Kenyan shillings (about 1.3 million USD) in compensation and to restitute their ancestral lands, enabling them to enjoy the human rights that have been denied them.

Despite tireless activism from the community and the historic nature of both judgments, Kenya has not implemented any part of either decision. The community remains socioeconomically marginalized as a result of their eviction and dispossession. Evictions have continued, notably in 2023 with 700 community members made homeless and their property destroyed, and in 2020 evicting about 600, destroying their homes in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Daniel Kobei, Executive Director of the Ogiek Peoples’ Development Program stated, ‘We have been at the African Court six times to fight for our rights to live on our lands as an indigenous people – rights which our government has denied us and continues to violate, compounding our plights and marginalization, despite clear orders from the African Court for our government to remedy the violations. This is the seventh time, and we were hopeful that the Court would be more strict to the government of Kenya in ensuring that a workable roadmap be followed in implementation of the two judgments.’

Image: The Ogiek delegation outside the African Court after the delivery of the decision. 4 December 2025.

Kenya has repeatedly justified the eviction of Ogiek as necessary for conservation, although the forest has seen significant harm since evictions began. Many in the community see a connection between their eviction and Kenya’s participation in lucrative carbon credit schemes.

‘The Court’s decision underscores the importance of timely and full implementation of measures imposed on a state which has been found to be in breach of their internationally agreed obligations. Kenya must now repay its debt to the indigenous Ogiek by restituting their land and making reparations, among other remedies ordered by the Court’, said Samuel Ade Ndasi, African Union Advocacy and Litigation Officer at Minority Rights Group.

The decision states, ‘the court orders the respondent state to immediately take all necessary steps, be they legislative or administrative or otherwise, to remedy all the violations established in the judgment on merits.’ The court also reaffirmed that no state can invoke domestic laws to justifiy a breach of international obligations.

Both of the original judgments were historic precedents, breaking new ground on the issue of restitution and compensation for collective violations experienced by indigenous peoples and confirming the vital role of indigenous peoples in safeguarding ecosystems, that states must respect and protect their land rights, that lands appropriated from them in the name of conservation without free, prior and informed consent must be returned, and their right to be the ultimate decision makers about what happens on their lands. Today’s decision adds to this tally of precedents as it is the first decision of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights concerning the record of a state in implementing a binding decision.

The case

In October 2009, the Kenyan government, through the Kenya Forestry Service, issued a 30-day eviction notice to the Ogiek and other settlers of the Mau Forest, demanding that they leave the forest. Concerned that this was a perpetuation of the historical land injustices already suffered, and having failed to resolve these injustices through repeated national litigation and advocacy efforts, the Ogiek decided to lodge a case against their government before the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights with the assistance of Minority Rights Group, the Ogiek Peoples’ Development Program and the Centre for Minority Rights Development. The African Commission issued interim measures, which were flouted by the Government of Kenya and thereafter referred the case to the African Court based on the complementarity relationship between the African Commission and the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights and on the grounds that there was evidence of serious or massive human rights violations.

On 26 May 2017, after years of litigation, a failed attempt at amicable settlement and an oral hearing on the merits, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights rendered a merits judgment in favour of the Ogiek people. It held that the government had violated the Ogiek’s rights to communal ownership of their ancestral lands, to culture, development and use of natural resources, as well as to be free from discrimination and practise their religion or belief. On 23 June 2022, the Court rejected Kenya’s objections and set out the reparations owed for the violations established in the 2017 judgment.

Source: minorityrights.org

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