As part of its efforts to promote secure land tenure in Africa, three Programmes of German Development Cooperation joined hands and brought together 120 land experts from 17 countries to discuss Responsible Land Governance Systems in Somone, Senegal on 7-11 October 2024. This was the second such workshop after the Knowledge Exchange Workshop in June 2022 in Uganda, entitled "Secure Land Rights – Learning, Collaboration and Practice", and was intended to deepen exchanges as well as share lessons learned.

The Struggles for Land Podcast gives a voice to those fighting for access to land and defending the commons. Focusing on one major theme per episode, the podcast interviews and brings together farmers' organizations, social movements, environmental protection and the defense of the commons, as well as researchers and consumer associations. These exchanges between actors from the four corners of the globe enable us to better understand the local and international stakes, the successes and the difficulties of these mobilizations, which all have in common that they are working towards a society based on peasant and feminist agriculture in harmony with ecosystems. You can listen to all the episodes on this page and on the various platforms:

On the opening day of the World Bank’s 2024 Land Conference, organizations of small-scale food producers, Indigenous Peoples, workers, grassroots communities, and civil society denounce the World Bank as a major actor of land grabbing and ecosystem destruction. They call for effective measures to realize the right to land and territories, including agrarian reform.

This year’s Equator Prize will recognize innovative initiatives that showcase how action on nature, led by Indigenous Peoples and local communities, can provide effective climate solutions, and demonstrate effective pathways to transform our global systems for people and Planet. Winning initiatives will be honored for their successes in protecting, restoring, and/or sustainably managing nature for nature-positive development outcomes.

Are you passionate about upholding Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IP&LC) rights and supporting the protection of forests and biodiversity and the governance of IPLC land and forests in the African continent?  

In the run up to COP28, the Land Portal Foundation has published a completely revised and updated Indigenous and Communities Land Rights thematic portfolio. While world leaders attending COP28 have recognized the important role of indigenous communities in the fight against climate change, most governments have failed to live up to their commitments.

Latest paper from the WOLTS team offers new evidence of a sustainable approach to securing land rights for women and communities 

Just 38 indigenous communities out of 455 have received communal land titles since the government first made them available in 2009, with indigenous activists and rights groups bemoaning the notoriously slow process.

We now invite abstract submissions for the IOS Fair Transitions - LANDac Annual International Conference 2023. IOS Fair Transitions and LANDac invite you to review the collection of conference sessions and submit your abstract to your preferred session. Abstract submissions should use the Abstract Submission Form, and include:

Robin Palmer passed away on Sunday 19 February. Robin was a pro-poor land activist who worked tirelessly as an academic and practitioner in the land rights sector for more than five decades.

A hazy Cambodian government land zoning and titling initiative known as Sub-Decree 30 has made life problemativ for indigenous community

Guinea-Bissau has been described as a country of “precarious complexity”. Home to more than 20 ethnic groupings Guinea-Bissau fought one of the longest wars on the African continent to end centuries of Portuguese control. It finally obtained independence in 1974. Since 1980 the history of Guinea-Bissau has been marked by multiple military coups and extreme fragility. This political instability has driven up poverty and stalled legal reforms to secure land rights. In 2008 the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime declared Guinea-Bissau to be Africa’s first ‘narco state’.  By 2019 Guinea-Bissau was the 12th poorest country in the world. It has also been identified as highly vulnerable to climate change with low lying coastal areas at risk from rising sea levels and flooding.