In recent years, many legal services organisations have
developed innovative ways for using legal processes to help
disadvantaged groups have more secure rights over their land.
The approaches, tools and methods used vary widely across
contexts - from legal literacy training to paralegals
programmes; from participatory methodologies to helping local
groups register their lands or negotiate with government or the
private sector, through to legal representation and strategic
use of public interest litigation. While some of this experience
has been documented, much of it has not. Only a very limited
part of this experience has fed into international debates, and
there have been few opportunities for lesson-sharing and cross-
fertilisation among practitioners. In March 2008, the Food and
Agriculture Organization of the UN, the International Institute
for Environment and Development, and the Faculty of Law of the
University of Ghana jointly organised an international workshop
to promote exchange of experience among