WEBINAR: Consolidating Agrarian Neoliberalism? The Land Policy Revision process in Mozambique
THURSDAY 29 April 2021 from 13:00–14:00 SAST/CAT
PLAAS invites you to a webinar on “Consolidating Agrarian Neoliberalism? The Land Policy Revision process in Mozambique”.
Speakers include:
- Dr Alda Salomão, Director of TINDZILA, Land and Natural Resources Governance Research Centre (Centro de Pesquisa sobre Governação de Terras e Recursos Naturais)
- Isidro Macaringue, Advocacy officer, União Nacional de Camponeses – National Peasants’ Union – UNAC)
- Gizela Zunguze, Justiça Ambiental/Friends of the Earth Mozambique)
The webinar will be chaired by Dr Boaventura Monjane, Mozambican journalist and scholar-activist and PLAAS postdoctoral researcher.
On 16 July 2020, the president of Mozambique, Filipe Jacinto Nyusi, officially launched the public hearing process of the National Land Policy Review, aimed at amending the 1997 Land Law (Law no.19/97), and other regulations that govern land management in the country.
The National Land Policy Review was initiated to address what has been described as rigid policies and laws that have hindered land-based investments, making land more transactable. Even though the state will continue to hold ownership over the land, as assured by the president on the day the process was launched, the National Land Policy Review signals a significant shift in Mozambique’s land governance towards a more market-oriented policy framework that will allow more flexible transfer of land use rights, known by the acronym DUATs (Direito do Uso e Aproveitamento da Terra or Land Use and Benefit Rights).
This has provoked a twofold reaction in the public: it has been applauded by the right-wing populist forces within Frelimo, the governing party, on the one hand, and highly criticized by a significant segment of civil society for the lack of transparency, secrecy and authoritarianism.
Questions for discussion include:
- How to make sense of this new development in the Mozambique land policy framework?
- What forces and whose interests does this agenda serve?
- What are the risks involved for peasants and other small-scale food producers?
- Will a revised land policy and Law protect or rather threaten peasants right to land access and control?
- What are the regional trends in SADC?
Tune in on Thursday 29 April 2021 at:
13 :00 South African Standard Time (SAST) / Central African Time (CAT)
12:00 West Africa Time (WAT)
14:00 East Africa Time (EAT)
Watch the webinar here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8NdfZeTMKY Or scroll down to view it.
