ANGOC participated in an international conference, Contested Access to Land in the Philippines and Indonesia: How can the Rural Poor (Re)gain Control?, held on 16-17 February at the Asian Center and University Hotel, University of the Philippines Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines.

Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR) of the University of Amsterdam, and the Asian Center and Third World Studies Center (TWSC) of the University of the Philippines organized the event.

The conference, was as a venue for academic researchers, NGO practitioners, and policy activists and advocates to share experiences on land grabbing and vulnerabilities of the rural poor in land deals in Indonesia and the Philippines and reflect and better understand how the rural poor can “(re)gain control” over land.

Parallel panel sessions were held on the following topics:

• Challenges and dilemmas of advocacy: addressing corporate land acquisitions
• Post-conflict land acquisitions and land governance
• Indigenous people and commercial land claims
• The gender dimension of land deals
• The role of States, policies, and their outcomes
• Post-disaster land grab
• Who controls the land after land reform?
• The past and future of resource extraction and agrarian issues
• Alternative models of small-scale farming and land ownership

ANGOC Executive Director, was one of the panel members under the Challenges and dilemmas of advocacy: addressing corporate land acquisitions session. The presentation highlighted the land grabbing cases documented by the Land Watch Asia (LWA) partners in the Philippines and Indonesia, and the recommendations of the Asian Peoples Land Rights Tribunal.

Looking forward, the next challenge will be on how to collaborate the shared ideas to have common political projects, research, and initiatives between academics and CSO/social movements in the Philippines and Indonesia.