(Ecofin Agency) - Last Wednesday, Senegal’s Lawyers Association (AJS in French) has launched a training session on voluntary guidelines on responsible governance of tenure of land, fisheries and forests.

The meeting which ended on Friday 20, 2017, gathered about forty paralegals and rural actors from Fatick, Kaolack, Kédougou, Sédhiou and Kaffrine. “During these days, experts will train the participants. Dialogues will focus on the 10 principles of voluntary guidelines such as information concerning the legal and institutional frameworks of land tenure, land system’s presentation and transfer procedures,” AJS’s president, Fatoumata Guèye Ndiaye, told l’Agence de Presse Sénégalaise.

The workshop focused on “the ten points of the voluntary guidelines to help paralegals fully understand them so they can transfer this knowledge to women and the youth”, thus “ending discrimination in land management”. Paralegals, now equipped, “can train women regarding access to land, informing them about their rights, which equal men’s”.

Established in 2012 by the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) and the UN’s General Assembly, the voluntary guidelines on land “aim to promote secure tenure rights and equitable access to lands, fisheries and forests, as a means of eradicating hunger and poverty, supporting sustainable development and enhancing the environment”, says the Food and Agriculture Organization on its website.

Souha Touré