This op-ed by Katlego Ramantsina, a researcher at the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies first appeared in the Daily Maverick
Developing land tenure legislation is a difficult job to get right — especially given the legacy of intractable problems inherited from apartheid. The Gauteng consultation did not seem genuine: it lasted only three hours.
This blog was written by Anna Schreiber and originally posted through Land for Life at https://land-for-life.org/10-years-of-vggt-time-to-take-stock/
In many countries men control who gets to use, own, and make decisions about land.
“We used to stay in a corner, quiet. If someone came to take our land or exploit our forests, we did not have the courage to try to stop them.” These words from a woman in Mecoburi, Mozambique reflect how women across the world often feel powerless to defend their rights to land and natural resources. For rural communities, land means everything, from the ability to produce crops for food and income to leveraging financial assets.
More than a dozen land-related indicators are housed over five SDG goals, with data maintained by different custodian agencies. The Land Portal re-launched the SDG Land Tracker to help land stakeholders monitor developments and discussion.
Since the pandemic began, housing experts (including one of the authors of this article) have been predicting that the pandemic’s economic fallout would produce an eviction “tsunami” that could put as many as 40 million people out of their homes.
The good governance of land is critical to the pursuit of sustainable development. Given that the land sector is often considered to be susceptible to corruption, open and transparent land data is seen as an opportunity to fight corruption. Following global trends, the land sector is increasingly engaging in efforts to make more land and spatial data open and freely available.
Ahead of the 2021 Conference on Land Policy in Africa (CLPA), taking place 1 - 4 November, the Land Portal spoke with three members of the organizing committee.
Dr. Rexford A. Ahene is a Professor of Economics at Lafayette College and the Chair of this year's Scientific Committee at the CLPA-2021.
