On Monday, a two-day seminary regrouping around ten of Ivory Coast’s political party, members of the prospective platform for political parties (PPPP), began in Grand-Bassam, in the South Eastern part of the country. The goal of the meeting, AIP reports, was to “think on the rural land issue and its consequences in Ivory Coast”. 

Present at the session was Thilo Shöne, resident representative of the Friedrich Ebert foundation, who said that “only 4% of lands in Cote d’Ivoire are registered”, adding that he wished the talks resulted in proposals that “would pave the way for the transition of customary rights to registration, and assess "how compatible the 1998 law is with the country’s actual cultural reality”.

“The seminary’s objectives is to improve participants’ rural land-related skills in Cote d’Ivoire, broaden discussion on the matter and help define new contextualized, constructive and development-inducive alternatives which will also help reduce land conflicts, help understand the impact of rural land issue on employment and make land a key component of discussions and proposals of political parties so as to initiate national dialogue,” the press agency said. 

The meeting was an initiative of the Friedrich Ebert foundation and Audace Institut Afrique.