Twenty-seven years after the last conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (1979) and the writing of the Peasants’ Charter, the FAO, in partnership with the Brazilian government, organized in 2006 a new world conference on this theme.

In order to prepare the discussion, the FAO asked some experts on land issues and rural development to write the issue documents of the conference. Two members of AGTER, Michel MERLET and Vicent GARCES, and a partner, Samuel THIRION, have been contacted to write the second issue paper of the conference :

States and Civil Society : access to land, rural development and capacity building for new forms of governance.
The original text in French as well as the English version reviewed by AGTER are accessible here. Translations into Spanish. Portuguese and Chineese are also available on our website.

The translation of this document into Arabic is available on the website of the conference, as well as the 4 other issue documents in 6 languages.

Intervention de M.Merlet (vers. française)

The three authors participated in the deliberations of the two commissions of the conference as well as in some side events (follow-up indicators, creation of the Landtenure.info website, the experience of the World Forum on the Agrarian Reform [coordinated by the CERAI (Spain) and organized by organizations of the civil society as a thematic forum of the World Social Forum in Valencia in December 2004]. For the moment, Michel Merlet’s speech is only available in french.

ICARRD. Final Report. English.

The ICARRD conference, that took place in Porto Alegre (Brazil) between the 7th and the 10th of March 2006, revived the issue of agrarian reform within the agenda of the international organizations. The conference led to a common declaration of the 95 participating countries reaffirming their engagement to search for solutions to present problems and challenges.

Final declaration of the Civil Society Forum (English version)

Civil Society Organizations of Social Movements held in parallel a forum on the theme : Land, territories and dignity, They also participated in various activities of the Conference and prepared a common declaration.

Documents presented during the conference are available on the ICARRD website (see our page of links). They will be very usefull to construct proposals and policies that will permit a fair distribution of land and a sustainable rural development.