 |
From left: Ms. Zeinabou Hadari, Permanent Secretary, Country Coordinating Mechanism of Niger For The Global Fund; Niger; Ms. Naila Sellini, University of Sousse, Tunisia; Mr. Ahmed O. El-Kholei, Professor of Urban Planning, Menofia University, Egypt; Mr. Nfally Badiane, Senegal; Mr. Mohamed El-Sioufi, Head, Shelter Branch, UN-HABITAT; Ms. Clarissa Augustinus, Chief, Land, Tenure and Property Administration Section UN-HABITAT and Secretariat of GLTN; Mr. Alioune Badiane, Director, Regional Office for Africa and the Arab States, UN-HABITAT; Ms. Safiya Tan, Academy for Peace and Development, Hargeisa; and Ms. Namukasa Aishah, Islamic University of Uganda |
Twenty experts— representing academia, civil society, international development organizations and the private sector—last week concluded a GLTN Workshop in Nairobi to provide feedback on a training package on Islamic land law and discuss its wider dissemination including strategies for adapting and utilizing the package for different stakeholders. Participants from Egypt, India, Iraq, Kenya, Malaysia, Niger, Senegal, Somaliland, Tunisia and Uganda, amongst others, illustrated the diversity of the Muslim world and the need for local adaptations.
The training package, which has been developed for the Global Land Tool Network by Siraj Sait and Hilary Lim of the University of East London, is based on the pioneering book Land, Law and Islam, property and Human Rights in the Muslim World by Sait and Lim published by UN-HABITAT and Zed Books in 2006. The training package consists of eights sessions, covering the relevance of Islamic land tools; Islamic law, land and methodologies; Islamic human rights and land; Islamic land tenures and reform; inheritance laws and systems; property rights of Muslim women, Waqf and Islamic philanthropy and Islamic microfinance. The training package is being finalized by GLTN through UN-HABITAT’s Shelter and Training and Capacity Building Branches.
In most Muslim countries Islamic law, principles and practices make an important contribution to shaping access to land. One of GLTNs objectives, through its Islamic mechanism, is therefore the identification and development of Islamic land tools through a cross-cultural, interdisciplinary and global process. The goal is to widen the understanding of significant aspects of land in the Muslim world to a wider audience, and to recognize that Islamic approaches to land can be used to supplement the application of international standards and goals.
Speaking at the closing ceremony, Mr. Alioune Badiane, UN-HABITAT’s Director, Regional Office for Africa and the Arab States, underscored the relevance of the capacity building initiative for the technical cooperation work of UN-HABITAT in Muslim contexts and the need to make the package available as soon as possible.
The Workshop provided several critical areas for enhancing the package such as inclusion of case studies describing best practices in the application of Islamic land law, which will be integrated by GLTN prior to making the package available on the GLTN site for public use.
Once a generic version of the training package is available, local adaptations of the package, or selected sessions, will be encouraged. With inputs from scholars, researchers and students, adaptations could be for different stakeholders (such as legislators, traditional leaders, civil society and the media and professionals such as planners, land administrators, Islamic bankers and lawyers). Adaptations will also need to be sensitive to different geographic contexts. |
