Abidjan declaration: 1st African youth forum on land

JVE Ivory Coast | 30 April 2025

Abidjan, 24 to 26 April 2025

We, 45 delegates representing organisations and communities from Benin, Burkina-Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Gabon, Ghana, the Republic of Guinea, Mali, Niger, the Republic of Congo, Senegal, Tunisia, Togo and Côte d'Ivoire, who met in Abidjan for the first Young Africans' Forum on Land, are deeply concerned about the lack of land security for small farmers in Africa.

In this spirit

WE ADOPT this declaration, affirming our commitment to responsible land governance and to restoring ancestral, community and small farmer control over traditional lands.

WE RECOGNISE THAT :

- The sovereignty of African peoples over their lands, national wealth and natural resources is inalienable;

- Ancestral lands represent an economic, cultural and genetic heritage that is inseparable from traditions and essential to the development and future of peoples;

- The ancestral lands of communities have an intrinsic value and deserve respect regardless of their usefulness to the inhabitants;

- Women play a central role in safeguarding and sustainably utilising ancestral lands.

- The active participation of young people in land governance and their access to land are major levers for boosting local economies and preserving traditional lands.

- Access to land for small farmers is essential for the food sovereignty of the African people and a guarantee for the preservation of ecosystems;

- Women are the guardians of food diversity in developing countries despite their limited access to land/productive resources.

WE CONDEMN :

- Land grabbing, hoarding and inappropriate land policies that marginalise farmers and communities and sell off African land to multinationals, foreign and national investors and local elites;

- African governments for obstructing the exercise of customary land rights and for failing to take account of existing customary rules when drawing up legislation and policies on land management and governance;

- Land tenure insecurity caused by post-colonial legal frameworks that are unsuited to community traditions and practices;

- Any act that seizes, dispossesses or marginalises communities, women and young people from their lands;

- Any act that consists of polluting, degrading or over-exploiting ancestral lands and allocating them in the form of concessions to companies that cause violence and loss of life and biodiversity, particularly with extractive activities;

- The failure to respect international commitments ratified by African states that are supposed to guarantee the human rights of African peoples;

- Development models based on a logic of providing compensation to communities;

- The use of synthetic chemical inputs and the introduction of hybrid seeds and the hijacking of the world's food supply by a small number of companies producing hybrid or genetically modified seeds.

WE CALL ON :

The governments of African countries to guarantee the sovereignty of the people over their natural resources and national wealth, as stipulated by constitutional rights and international conventions;

- African governments to return dispossessed land to communities by adopting fair, inclusive and equitable land and agrarian reforms;

- The governments of African countries to promote the involvement of communities in the processes of drawing up and implementing land and land-use policies and legislation;

- African farmers and communities to organise themselves and bring together their struggles for access to land and food sovereignty;

- African civil society organisations to join the fight for fair, inclusive and equitable land and agrarian reforms.

WE COMMIT OURSELVES, ON THE BASIS OF A PEASANT STRUGGLE, TO :

- Unite for the restoration of the sovereignty of African peoples over their lands, their natural resources and their national wealth;

- Promote a process of capacity-building for peasant movements through education, exchanges and non-violent resistance actions aimed at combating land grabbing and demanding the return of traditional lands;

- Facilitate the creation of a dynamic network of farmers' organisations, communities, activists and NGOs working together at local, national and international levels to develop strategies and tactics to combat land grabbing;

- Monitor and get involved in the legislative and political processes of land governance and land use planning with the aim of pushing for fair, inclusive and equitable land and agrarian reforms;

- Lobby national governments to guarantee African women's right to access land;

- Promote and defend farmers' agro-ecological practices and food sovereignty.        

RECOGNISING that action to protect the living wealth and beauty of the land depends on the full engagement of the small farmer communities and organisations concerned, WE COMMIT OURSELVES to work wholeheartedly to implement the provisions of this Declaration.

EMPHASIZING that securing community lands is essential for the maintenance of human society and the conservation of our planet,

WE INVITE PARTICIPANTS to disseminate this Declaration widely with the aim of ensuring that the conclusions are incorporated into day-to-day activities.  

Declaring countries :

Benin,

Burkina-Faso,

Burundi,

Cameroon,

Ivory Coast

Gabon, Ghana

Ghana,

Republic of Guinea,

Mali, Niger

Niger,  

Republic of Congo,

Senegal, Tunisia

Tunisia,

Togo.