By Witness Radio team.

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia -As the 16th session of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) Conference of the Parties (COP16) kicks off today, civil society organizations (CSOs) from around the globe, including Witness Radio, have issued an urgent call for action from all stakeholders, including world leaders, governments, and the United Nations.

These organizations urge policymakers to prioritize sustainable land management, inclusion, and resilience-building measures. This approach is crucial to safeguard food security and human well-being in the face of intensifying desertification, land degradation, and drought.

The conference, held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, began today and runs until December 13, 2024, under the theme Our Land. Our Future. Witness Radio, a leading land and environmental advocacy group, is among the NGOs represented in the ongoing COP 16. These NGOs play a crucial role in shaping the discussions and advocating for policies that address desertification, land degradation, and drought.

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), established in 1994, is the exclusive, globally binding treaty—signed by 197 countries and the European Union—that is at the forefront of the fight against land degradation. The UNCCD is the global voice for land, championing land stewardship to avoid, reduce, and reverse land degradation and ensure the ongoing availability of land-based resources vital to human survival.

Among the 12 demands include Securing and supporting meaningful inclusion of women, youth, local communities, pastoralist communities, and Indigenous Peoples into decision-making for policy development, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and reporting at national, subnational and regional levels; Developing and implementing policies and governance at the national and sub-national levels; Supporting locally led actions and initiatives and knowledge exchange between local communities, pastoral communities, Indigenous Peoples, CSOs, policymakers, politicians, scientists, and researchers by accessible funding mechanisms; and Ensuring the mobilization of public financial resources that keep pace with the escalating adverse effects of desertification, land degradation, drought and sand storms, through measures such as taxation and fiscal incentives, among others.

To access the entire document of the 12 key messages, click here.

The scale of the issue, as revealed in Witness Radio’s recent report, is staggering and demands immediate attention: Over 5,000 hectares are targeted weekly by local and foreign investors, leading to the displacement of hundreds of Indigenous and local communities. This urgent situation threatens their food sovereignty and environmental stewardship, necessitating immediate and decisive action.

The forced land evictions are not just numbers; they are exacerbating inequality and directly undermining the efforts of local farmers to safeguard food systems and the environment.

Disturbing findings from the Daily Monitor: Uganda is grappling with a surge in malnutrition cases, with over 260,000 children suffering from acute malnutrition, as reported by UNICEF and WHO.

When evicted from their land, which is the source of livelihood, survival becomes very difficult, resulting in unwanted deaths, sicknesses, and poverty. These are not just statistics, but the harsh realities the affected communities face. It’s crucial to remember that there’s a human story of struggle and loss behind every statistic, and it’s these stories that should drive our actions.

Witness Radio’s recent report, which covered the first half of 2024, revealed that Ugandans face forced land evictions daily to give way to land-based investments, with 723 hectares of land at risk of being grabbed daily.

Furthermore, over 360,000 Ugandans were displaced, with a daily average of 2,160 people losing their livelihood. Land is targeted for oil and gas extraction, mining, agribusiness, and tree plantations for carbon offsets. While some investments have taken shape on the grabbed land, other pieces of grabbed land are still empty but under the guardship of military and private security firms.

The report pointed out that the leading causes of forced land evictions were the lack of legal documents for land ownership and transparent mechanisms to regulate an influx of “investors.” This lack of legal ownership is not just a symptom but the root cause of the problem, highlighting the urgent need for legal reform to protect the rights of Indigenous and local communities.

Since the Uganda government announced an industrial policy that commoditized its land to fight its unemployment, which will give Uganda a middle-income class status from a low-developed country, there has been an increase in forced land eviction cases. This policy shift, encouraging large-scale industrial projects, has raised questions about the government’s responsibility and accountability in these evictions.

Many investors fraudulently acquire communities’ land and do not conduct feasibility studies to establish whether the targeted land has interests. On many occasions, communities are not consulted about their land, and no compensation is offered.

According to the Lands Ministry’s 2016 annual report, about 23 percent of Uganda’s land is registered. The registration is mostly with freehold (where the land is owned outright), mailo (a form of land tenure in Buganda, a region in Uganda, customary tenure), and lease (where the land is leased for a specific period) tenure systems.

Go-betweens and blockers use this gap with support from some government officials to acquire land titles fraudulently and later evict bonafide land occupants (Indigenous and local communities) to give way for land-based investment.

By Witness Radio team.

The Appellate Division of the East African Court of Justice (EACJ) has rejected a request by the Tanzanian government to dismiss an appeal filed by four East African civil society organizations (CSOs) seeking compliance with the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) with regional and international human rights standards.

Tanzania’s Deputy Solicitor General, Mr. Mark Mulwambo, requested the judges dismiss the Appeal, arguing that the record of proceedings from the hearings held at the First Instance Division was missing. The record of proceedings includes the CSOs and respondents’ submissions. He added that, without it, the judges at the Appellate Division could not determine whether the First Instance Court erred in the ruling that they made.

However, the court could not grant his request. Instead, it ordered the four CSOs that filed the Appeal to file supplementary information so that the judges could hear the case.

The Appeal will be heard by a panel of judges from the Appellate Division of the EACJ, including Justice Nestor Kayobera, the division’s president; Justice Anita Mugeni, the Vice President; Justice Kathurima M’Inot; Justice Cheboriona Barishaki; and Justice Omar Othman Makungu. These judges, with their expertise in regional and international law, will review the Appeal and make a final decision.

The Appeal was filed by four CSOs, including the Africa Institute for Energy Governance (AFIEGO) from Uganda, the Centre for Food and Adequate Living Rights (CEFROHT) from Uganda, the Natural Justice (NJ) from Kenya, and the Centre for Strategic Litigation (CSL) from Tanzania, in December 2023. This was in response to the dismissal of their case, which sought compliance with the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) with regional and international human rights standards, by judges at the First Instance Division of the EACJ in November 2023.

During the dismissal, the court ruled that the applicants filed the petition out of time, stating that the petitioners should have filed the petition as early as 2017 instead of 2020. The court also ruled that it did not have jurisdiction to hear the case, meaning it did not have the legal authority to decide on this matter. These decisions were based on legal precedents and the specific circumstances of the case.

The CSOs were ordered to file the record of proceedings by Justice Nestor Kayobera by November 29, 2024.

The court session was attended by EACOP-affected communities from both Uganda and Tanzania. Among them was Mr. Gozanga Kyakulubya, an affected person from Kyotera District in Southern Uganda, who traveled to Arusha to participate in the hearing. His personal story underscores the profound impact of the EACOP on the lives of these communities.

He shared his grievance, stating, “I came to the court because I have a lot of pain. My land was taken for the EACOP, and before I was paid, it was fenced off. The government of Uganda also sued me because I rejected the low compensation offered by EACOP. We need at least one court to be fair to EACOP host communities, and we hope the East African Court of Justice will be that court.”

The EACOP has been designed, constructed, financed, and operated through a dedicated Pipeline Company with the same name. The shareholders in EACOP are affiliates of the three upstream joint venture partners: the Uganda National Oil Company (8%), TotalEnergies E&P Uganda (62%), and CNOOC Uganda Ltd (15%), together with the Tanzania Petroleum Development Corporation (15%).

The 1,443km pipeline will eventually transport Uganda’s crude oil from Kabaale—Hoima to the Chongoleani peninsula near Tanga Port in Tanzania.

Climate activists and civil society organizations, however, continue to oppose the project, claiming that it will harm several fragile and protected habitats irreversibly and violate key agreements and treaties.

The potential environmental damage is a cause for concern among these groups.