During this year’s conference, Dr. Uchendu Eugene Chigbu of the TUM Chair of Land Management delivered a keynote address entitled, Negotiating land rights to redress land wrongs: women in Africa’s land reforms. The keynote speech focused on how to address the land wrongs women face in the continent. He used the speech to called for all sectors of the African society to play a harmonised role to support women’s land rights, to ensure the promotion of secure land access for all in the continent.
Dr. Chigbu delivered his keynote speech alongside other notable academics within the land academic disciplines such as Prof Sara Berry of Johns Hopkins University (USA), Prof Michael Lipton of Sussex University (UK), and Prof Pauline E. Peters of Harvard University (USA), among others. The full list of keynote speakers at the conference are available on the African Development Bank website https://www.afdb.org/en/events-2019-conference-land-policy-africa/speakers Dr Chigbu also contributed a chapter to a book entitled, Rethinking land reform in Africa new ideas, opportunities and challenges, published by the African Natural Resources Centre (a division of the African Development Bank). Apart from his keynote speech and chapter contribution, he also facilitated a Masterclass lecture during the conference. Video clips of the keynote speech are available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ip0JexlnldM&t=11s and https://youtu.be/AnlDeMv_ZSo Dr Chigbu also granted an interview to Land Portal (a global organisation specialized in land information delivery to community of land experts from civil society, government, intergovernmental agencies, and academia) on the importance of the conference. The interview is available at https://youtu.be/4TzGag-qgT8
Also important is that the conference included side events and exhibitions. Dr Pamela Duran (of TUM Chair of Land Management) exhibited the work of ADLAND (an African focused project capacity building in land management in Africa) as part of the Network of Excellency in Land Governance in Africa.