Conference on Botswana land policy

INVITATION FOR PAPERS

DITSHWANELO, the Botswana Centre for Human Rights, is is inviting submission of abstracts for a land conference to be held during the last week of August 2009.

The objective of the conference is to provide key stakeholders with the opportunity to engage on the role of land and related resources in poverty alleviation, particularly among the marginalized sections of the Botswana society.

Topics on which papers are invited:

1. Land Tenure and the marginalized in Botswana: Issues of a productive and caring nation
2. The effectiveness of the Tribal Land and State Land Acts in alleviating poverty in Botswana – the case of marginalized communities
3. Land use planning, efficiency and poverty alleviation
4. The role of land and related resources towards promoting socio - economic and cultural rights.
5. The role of Civil Society in land and related resources debate/advocacy.
6. Environmental externalities and their impacts on marginalized groups
7. The role of gender in the utilization of land, water and related resources for poverty alleviation.

Abstracts should be no fewer than 500 words or more than a single page (A4), indicating the problem of land and related resources in poverty alleviation, its importance to human rights achievement (literature review), especially the achievement of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Vision 2016 Pillars. The abstract should further indicate objectives of the proposed topic in relation to addressing the identified problem, the procedure of addressing the topic in terms of sources of information, and the method of analysis.

Abstracts should be e-mailed to: admin.ditshwanelo@info.bw and landrights.ditshwanelo@micro.co.bw or faxed to 6252712/3907778 the first week of July 2009.