Land Governance for Development Utrecht Summer School

Overview

This Land Governance for Development course from Utrecht Summer School will be taught in a face-to-face setting, with a possibility to change to an online format if necessary.

The large-scale acquisition of land in the Global South – often referred to as “land grabbing” or “the global land rush” – has received much attention from academics, policy-makers and the media in recent years.

Especially following the food crisis (2003-2008) and stimulated by the growing demand for bio-energy, pressure on land in developing countries has intensified. 

Besides the demand for agricultural land, current land acquisitions are also related to tourism development, mineral extraction, industrial development, urbanisation and even nature conservation. 

Local populations are often left defenceless in this ‘rush for land’ and governments lack capacity to address these challenges – or are sometimes themselves the drivers. As a result, access to and use of land and other natural resources, particularly in the developing world, is being transformed irreversibly. Moreover, covid-19 and the measures taken worldwide to curb the pandemic are of great concern to the land governance community, as alarming observations are coming in about the loss of livelihoods and deepening poverty, but also of government crackdowns on civil society, the suspension of land administration services and irregular land acquisition.

Set-up of the course

The course is organised by the Netherlands Academy for Land Governance (LANDac), a network of organisations interested in how land governance may contribute to sustainable and inclusive development. MSc students, PhD students and professionals from development organisations and related projects will acquire up-to-date knowledge on new land pressures and learn how to place these in broader theoretical contexts and policy debates from the local to the international level.