Guidelines Support Best Practices for Increasing Food Production and Promoting Sustainable Development

Last Friday in Rome, members of the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS) unanimously endorsed the Voluntary Guidelines for Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security. As chair for the negotiations that drafted the text of the Guidelines and Chief of USAID’s Land Tenure Division, I welcome the endorsement as a significant step forward towards addressing tenure issues that impact food security and sustainable development around the world.

This occasion signals an unprecedented recognition by governments and civil society of the importance of improving land and other resource governance systems as a strategy for reducing food insecurity. Securing land rights for men and women, indigenous people and other vulnerable groups, will help accomplish this goal.