For centuries, people around the world in the continents of Asia, Africa, Oceania and Latin America have been living off the forests and other natural resources to sustain their livelihoods, their cultural practices and sometimes even religious rituals.
- The 21st century is seeing the impacts of modernisation of the previous century. The most apparent impact is climate change.
- Land is intertwined with the human trajectory and powers of access to land come from social, political or other kinds of dominance, writes Nikita Sud in this commentary.
- By recoginising the many lives of land, it allows us to better appreciate, and strengthen, political processes that are less extractive and centralised, and more democratic.
Reports suggest the COVID-19 fallout is providing opportunities for elites to seize lands and rewrite regulations. We need effective responses to secure land rights and lay the foundations for a just recovery.
It’s time we break down the barriers to women’s access to land and protect women’s rights while the pandemic places them in a precarious situation
Not only is the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) having serious health impacts around the world, it also has the potential to significantly affect the housing, land, and property (HLP) of women and girls, particularly in low and middle-income countries.
Women at a disadvantage
By Catherine Benson Wahlén, Thematic Expert for Human Development, Human Settlements and Sustainable Development (US)
I write this blog as our project team embarks on a fifth year of work on women’s land tenure security (WOLTS) with pastoral communities in mining-affected areas of Mongolia and Tanzania. Just before Christmas 2019, we were in Mundarara village in northern Tanzania. Exceptionally heavy rains made getting around much more challenging than usual. Locals travelling on foot had to make wide detours to avoid getting bogged down in waterlogged grazing land, and it took everyone much longer to get to the village primary school for our long-planned training day.
The Rangelands Initiative of the International Land Coalition (ILC) is drawing attention to rangelands and drylands at the highest levels, in order to find solutions to the challenges faced by local populations that live and work there, and to encourage appropriate investment including in securing land rights and good governance, building resilience to drought and other shocks or stresses, and increasing rangeland productivity.
A recent policy seminar at IFPRI presented an upcoming CGIAR publication on the topic
- Participation and sectoriality in development
Cosmas Milton Ochieng, an expert in natural resource governance and economic development in Africa, is the Director of the African Natural Resource Centre at the African Development Bank.
In collaboration with the African Union Commission and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, the African Development Bank will host the 3rd Edition of the Conference on Land Policy in Africa in Abidjan from 25 to 29 November 2019.
In this interview, Ochieng shares key insights into why the conference matters for Africa.