A WARM WELCOME TO THE NEW ASIA STEERING COMMITTEE MEMBERS!
Dear Members and Allies of the International Land Coalition,
I am excited to introduce the newly elected members of the Asia Steering Committee who will serve as key representatives of the three subregions—Central Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia—and the five constituencies: women, youth, Indigenous Peoples, pastoralists, and peasants.
Their leadership will be critical as we continue our work to shift power to the people and ensure that the voices of those most impacted by land-related issues are heard and acted upon starting with raising their concerns at the upcoming Asia Land Forum in Jakarta. With their diverse backgrounds, expertise, and deep commitment to the rights and livelihoods of their communities, they are well-positioned to guide our collective efforts in advocating for land justice.
I look forward to the important contributions they will make in shaping the future of the International Land Coalition’s work in Asia, and am confident that their leadership will help steer us towards achieving our shared goals.
Please join me in congratulating them on their election and supporting them as they take on this vital role.
In solidarity,
Pallab Chakma
Co- Chair, ILC Council
To know more about the Asia Land Forum 2025
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Here's What Our Steering Committee Members Expect from ALF 2025!
Empowering Youth is a Matter of Ensuring the Future of the Planet
Chandra raises concerns around the future of Asia's land, its forests, and its farmlands hinges on the involvement of its youth. According to her, as custodians of biodiversity and stewards of the environment, the youth movement must play a critical role in securing land rights, ensuring that the next generation inherits a home and a sustainable future.
Empowering youth to protect their heritage is not just a matter of rights; it is a matter of survival, for their well-being and the planet.
Land is life for millions in Asia
Soeung stresses on the fact that forced displacement and land grabs, economic land concession, investment projects, and debt-driven land sales, have exacerbated the suffering of communities who live on and from the land.
We must stand together to support them to fight for their right to land, and natural resources, and especially their livelihood and their children's education for a better life in the future.
Building the capacity of people's organizations is essential
Altantuya makes a valid point about Asia being home to 60 percent of the world’s population, half of whom live in rural areas and rely mostly on agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and pastoralism for their livelihoods. It is also home to 80 percent of family farmers, who produce 60 percent of the world’s food.
Climate change impacts vary across regions and countries. In Mongolia and Central Asia, pastoral communities are experiencing frequent snow and dust storms, summer droughts, flooding or low precipitation levels, pasture land degradation, and pasture land grabbing in the name of development and mining, which are negatively impacting their livelihoods.
She draws attention to a need for access to financial incentives, like carbon markets, for the sustainable practices and resiliency-building that pastoralists need while urging industries to support sustainable pastoralism.
Historical injustices must stop
Today, industrialization, corporatization, and the climate crisis have worsened these injustices. Corporate interests, under the banner of hydropower, solar energy, mining, infrastructure projects, and large-scale industrial farming, are accelerating land grabs and displacement.
I stand against the historical injustice of land dispossession that continues to impact the landless, Indigenous peoples, smallholders, and tenant farmers.
The Asian Land Forum provides him and ILC Asia members a chance to unite land rights holders, amplify a common voice, and push a new land agenda against these threats.
Lanie's 5 point agenda for peasants and farmers
- Continue its good work in assisting land rights defenders and their people's organizations, while ensuring that gains achieved at the global, regional, and national levels are felt on the ground where it matters most.
- Champion pro-people land reform policies that address gaps in the implementation of land (re)distribution, protection of their land tenure security, and provision of agricultural support services.
- Condemn attacks on land rights defenders as seen in the continuing trend of violence, criminalization, and marginalization in decision-making processes. We call for an investigation of collusion between powerful individuals and companies, and the government in protecting the status quo of land inequality, and keep farmers and peasants landless and poor.
- Call for meaningful participation of smallholder farmers and peasants in the transformation of food systems as a key stakeholder in mitigating and adapting to the effects of climate change, safeguarding agrobiodiversity, and promoting healthy communities.
- We call on the ILC to fully realize its priority on putting people's organizations at the forefront of the struggle for land rights and tenure security.
Innovative approaches must be adopted
Aitkul's home country Kyrgyzstan, which is agrarian, has strived to develop using innovative approaches. He goes on to explain that at the end of the 20th century, agrarian reforms were carried out, after which farmers received land in private ownership. But now there is a problem with small-scale development and marketing of manufactured products.
The President of the country by decree set the task of solving these problems. Here are two aspects he hopes to get acquainted with at the Asia Land Forum through the sharing of experiences and best practices by ILC Asia peers:
The unification and joint work of farmers, because I know our colleagues have good experience of Unification in communities, cooperatives, associations, and other forms and organization of marketing between members of ILC Asia of the products they produce because I think almost all farmers have a problem with marketing their products. This will be a good project for unification and joint work for all members of ILC.
He is also interested in issues of women's and youth entrepreneurship and their participation in decision-making on important development issues.
Women hold up half the sky
As a representative of women from Asia, Alice views the Asia Land Forum as a critical platform for land rights stakeholders to converge and reaffirm our commitment to securing equal land rights for women.
Her 5 point agenda for women
- Ensuring women's equal access to land ownership, control, and decision-making over land use and management.
- Building partnerships and collaborations to shape an inclusive land governance agenda in Asia that prioritizes land rights for marginalized and vulnerable communities, particularly women.
- Advocating for reforms in discriminatory laws, policies, and regulations, and promoting pro-people and pro-women land reforms through land retrieval, regularization, and redistribution.
- Securing land tenure for women and protecting them from land-related conflicts and violence.
- Amplifying our voices to condemn attacks on land rights defenders and respond to violence against women related to land disputes.
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