Our perception of the best methods of governance of land and natural resources will evolve progressively and collectively, because of our collaborative ways of working (as explained earlier).
We intend to create the ways and means to promote and spread civil society’s views and proposals on governance. The mechanism that we use must have a realistic timeline, and be flexible and adaptable. It will rely on two distinct structures:
The heart of the operation: A worldwide network of people coming together in order to promote globally new forms of land and natural resources governance.
The linchpin in the process: The association AGTER, a French, non-government organisation created in March 2005 to ensure the promotion, coordination and widening of the network around the world.
All the different activities will be built around the network as a starting point. This worldwide network enables us to take into account the global dimensions of the problems, and to both include and widen the vision of each member.
AGTER intends to work using some key tools :
The organisation of collective research workshops on a theme or with a particular geographical focus. The network’s way of working will consider concrete and local experiences as the starting point of any reflection process. Once a meaningful body of work has been accumulated on a theme, the coordination board will organise (by itself or in collaboration with partners) opportunities to reflect on and analyse the new knowledge, which could take the form of a forum, or could be an event within an existing forum.
The publication (online, on paper, and by other means) of documents and relevant information on the issues that we are interested in. Most of the work carried out by the network will be made public, so that it can be used by all the network’s members and by civil society more widely. This way the network will become known and will grow.
The development of an open partnership with some organisations and strategic institutions, on the basis of them providing services to the network in a progressive way.
AGTER’s activities are explained in more detail in the following section.