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This international workshop brought together some 80 West Africans to consider the results of recent research and practical experience in the area of land tenure security. Researchers, decision-makers, leaders of farmers’ organisations and elected councillors got discussed tenure security and debated new approaches that might improve the situation for rural producers. Characterised by economic liberalisation, structural adjustment, democratisation and administrative decentralisation, the 1990s marked a clear break with the post-Independence situation. With the advent of globalisation, further wide-ranging changes are appearing, so it is therefore all the more essential to work out appropriate rules governing competition for land. Negotiations between the state and farmers’ organisations, some examples of which were discussed during the workshop, are leading to more democratic practices involving civil society organisations and experts in the debate on agriculture and land tenure.