Tenure is crucial to the livelihoods of billions of people. For many, their food security is linked to their tenure security. People with weak, insecure tenure rights risk losing their means to support themselves if they lose their access to natural resources. Women often have weaker tenure rights where there is discrimination in laws and customs. Tenure systems define who can use which natural resources, for how long and under what conditions. Many tenure problems are caused by weak governance and attempts to address them are affected by the quality of governance.

Monitoring reports were prepared in six Asian countries to understand the nature, causes, and impacts of land and resource conflicts, and to highlight the human rights issues intertwined with them. This publication likewise provides an overview of some of the available conflict response and resolution mechanisms in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Nepal, and the Philippines, and outlines recommended actions for addressing land conflicts.

Date: 2019

Source: Foncier & Développement, Inter-réseaux

Accès des femmes à la terre au Sénégal : quelques leçons tirées de l’étude « Promotion d’une gouvernance foncière inclusive par une amélioration des droits fonciers des femmes au Sénégal ».

An Introduction to Blockchain

Blockchain, at its most basic, is database technology. It is a type of distributed ledger, that can be concurrently accessed and updated by multiple users. Members of a blockchain network collectively validate new data through consensus algorithms and add the information to “blocks,” which are linked cryptographically into a “chain” (hence the term blockchain). As a result, this decentralized network creates an agreed-upon record of the time and origin of every data input, stored on many independent computers.

An Introduction to Drones

Land surveying and mapping are evolving rapidly due to advances in unmanned aerial system, or drone, technology. A drone is a flying machine—either fixed-wing or rotary—that is remotely controlled or flies autonomously through software-controlled flight plans. Because they are unmanned, drones are cheaper and smaller than manned aircraft, and can perform tasks too expensive or dangerous with a pilot on board.

An Introduction to Dual-Band GNSS

The vast majority of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS)-enabled consumer devices—like phones, tablets, smart watches, and car navigation systems—use single-frequency receivers, which are only accurate to about five meters, in good conditions.12 By contrast, dual-band satellite receivers use two different frequencies of signals to calculate positions.

An Introduction to Machine Learning

Machine learning is an application of artificial intelligence (AI) that enables systems to programmatically “learn” and improve from past experience. Computers use algorithms and statistical models to “learn” patterns and insights from sample sets of data (often called “training data sets”), and apply those insights to make intelligent predictions and decisions about much larger sets of data.

An Introduction to Self-Sovereign Identity

Self-sovereign identity (SSI) is a new paradigm for creating digital identity systems that function more like identity does in the physical world, where every person has a unique and persistent identity which is represented to others by means of a collection of credentials. SSI allows people to collect digital “credentials”—pieces of evidence about their identity—attested to by various external sources of authority.

An Introduction to 3D Cadastre

Over the last half century the world has seen rapid urbanization, which is anticipated to increase over the foreseeable future. According to the United Nations Population Division, only 30 percent of the world’s population lived in urban areas in 1950. As of 2018, that has increased to 55 percent with urbanization rates rising faster in some less developed regions.25 With the rise of urbanization, more people are living in multi-story buildings with shared services and facilities.

This guide provides fund managers with a practical introduction to human rights issues that may be relevant to their investments. It aims to provide

• a clear understanding of what human rights risks and impacts are, why they are important and how they relate to traditional environmental and social (E&S) risks and impacts, and

• a practical approach to integrating human rights lens into existing E&S due diligence approaches, aligned with international standards.

This report explains TMP Systems’ statistical analysis of how geospatial data showing indicators of local environmental, social and governance (ESG) conditions correlate with tenure risk. The results indicate strong enough correlations between some of these indicators and tenure risk, to support use of the indicators by companies and investors. This work underpins something new and useful, which is Landscope’s ability to provide location-specific risk assessments across many developing countries.

OpenLandContracts.org is a repository of publicly available investment contracts for land, agriculture, and forestry projects. It features plain language summaries of key provisions and provides tools for searching and comparing contracts.