Large-scale transnational land acquisition of agricultural land in the global south by rich corporations or countries raises challenging normative questions. In this article, the author critically examines and advocates a human rights approach to these questions. Mutually reinforcing, policies, governance and practice promote equitable and secure land tenure that in turn, strengthens other human rights, such as to employment, livelihood and food.

In recent years, the concept of ‘food sovereignty’ has gained increasing ground among grassroots groups, taking the form of a global movement. But there is no uniform conceptualization of what food sovereignty constitutes. Indeed, the definition has been expanding over time. It has moved from its initial focus on national self-sufficiency in food production (‘the right of nations’) to local self-sufficiency (‘the rights of peoples’). There is also a growing emphasis on the rights of women and other disadvantaged groups, and on consensus building and democratic choice.

Hanfets is a popular mixture of wheat and barley grown in the highlands of Eritrea and Tigray (Northern Ethiopia). In this study, we tested 16 experimental hanfets constituting all possible combinations of four barley landraces and four wheat (two landraces and two varieties) at three locations in Eritrea for 3 years during which farmers (both men and women) made selections of suitable hanfets. Across locations and years, the grain yield of hanfets on average was similar to that of the pure barley but significantly higher than that of wheat.

Safe water is widely recognized as both a fundamental human need and a key input into economic activity. Across the developing world, the typical approach to addressing these needs is to segregate supplies of water for domestic use from water for large-scale agricultural production. In that arrangement, the goal of domestic water supply is to provide small amounts of clean safe water for direct consumption, cleaning, bathing and sanitation, while the goal of agricultural water supply is to provide large amounts of lower quality water for irrigated agriculture.

In order to improve the livelihoods of communities and make them more sustainable, study of the vulnerability of livelihoods seems necessary. In this paper, participatory vulnerability analysis was used within a sustainable rural livelihoods framework to assess the sustainability of livelihoods in the agroecosystem of Abesard, Iran. In addition, this paper explored vulnerability contexts that affect livelihood assets. Findings revealed that land use change, climate variability, market fluctuations and higher mechanisation were the main reasons of vulnerability.

Land is an important asset for rural households, and having secure land rights is important for poverty reduction. Despite the large body of literature on the relationship between land tenure security, livelihoods, and poverty, most of this literature is based on household-level data and does not consider possible intrahousehold inequalities in land ownership.

The study tried to assess the state of data in India, particularly to track and report two critical land governance indicators viz. women land rights and forest rights, critical to ensure equity and sustainability in terms of public policy. 
With UN’s SDG, defining similar indicators, study  also attempts in aligning them around SDG indicators. Status of these two parameters were analyzed using nation-wide datasets collecting whole population data, through census of India, Agriculture Census  operations following robust processes and reporting them open access.

This workshop was orgainized at Bhubaneswar, India by Center for Land Governance, NRMC, Bhubaneswar with support of The World Bank, New Delhi. In this workshop salient findings on processes and progress made around gender equitable land tenure arrangements, best practices and challenges along with ground-happenings and post –land rights situations captured through community and stakeholders opinions were shared.

This paper analyzes the state’s Land Governance in terms of the five themes for
administrators, technicians and professionals working in the land sector as per the gender-framework of FAO’s VGGT along with an additional theme on community perspectives on women land rights, and recommends strategies for moving towards it.

This paper was presented at the “2017 WORLD BANK CONFERENCE ON LAND AND POVERTY”, The World Bank - Washington DC. This paper provides a comparative appreciation of all the datasets especially the metadata and methodology along with a SWOT vis-à-vis reporting requirement of SDG indicator.

There is a direct relationship between women’s right to land, economic empowerment, food security and poverty reduction. A gender approach to land rights can enable shifts in gender power relations, and assure that all people, regardless of sex, benefit from, and are empowered by, development policies and practices to improve people’s rights to land. This brief gives an overview on how to consider gender aspects in projects and programmes addressing land rights.