USAID Land Tenure and Property Rights Division Chief Dr. Gregory Myers's Remarks from Partners’ Support to the Voluntary Guidelines & Land Governance: Exploiting Synergies & Measuring Impact. Remarks posted as written.

A guest post by Dr. Daniel Monchuk, Agricultural Economist, Cloudburst Group; Dr. Cynthia M. Caron, Assistant Professor of International Development and Social Change, Clark University; and Stephanie Fenner, IDCE Fellow, Clark University

A guest post by Zemen Haddis Gebeyehu, Senior Agriculture Policy Advisor, USAID/Ethiopia

USAID/Kenya/OTI Deputy Country Representative, Galeeb Kachra, and Assistant Lands Commissioner, Mr Gituku, in front of the Thika Lands Registry

By Dr. Gregory Myers, USAID Division Chief, Land Tenure and Property Rights.
Last week, I visited Haiti to assess the land tenure and property rights situation there—four years after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake killed between 100,000 and 300,000 people and displaced another 1.5 million. Many Haitians continue to live in extreme poverty and much needs to be done to address the weak property rights system that slows economic growth and hinders infrastructure rebuilding efforts.

By Peter Giampaoli, Climate Change Specialist, Land Tenure and Property Rights Division, USAID. Clear, secure rights to manage and use forests are an important aspect of sustaining traditions and economic opportunities. Although this web site often discusses property rights in the context of developing countries, insecure title and undocumented land rights can undermine smallholder ownership in the United States as well.

The 2014 World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty will take place at the World Bank Headquarters in Washington, D.C. on March 24 - 27, 2014. The theme of the 15th annual conference is "Integrating Land Governance into the Post-2015 Agenda: Harnessing Synergies for Implementation and Monitoring Impact.”

Guest commentary by Dr. Cynthia M. Caron, Assistant Professor of International Development and Social Change, Clark University.

Farmers in Burma are increasingly organizing to push for recognition of expanded rights to land and how they use it. Despite the passage of the Farmland Law in 2012, grievances and conflicts over land remain widespread and farmers face continued restrictions of their farming choices.

USAID is pleased to announce a first-of-its-kind partnership between the Governments of Ethiopia, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Federal Republic of Germany to improve rural land governance. Building on existing programs and the seven land country partnerships announced at this year’s G8 Open for Growth Summit, this new partnership will support greater transparency in rural land governance, promote responsible agricultural investment, and improve Ethiopia’s legal framework and practices related to rural land administration and land use.

Over the past year, USAID has led a global effort in the land and resource governance sector to improve donor coordination and support the Voluntary Guidelines for the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries, and Forests in the Context of National Food Security(Voluntary Guidelines). Working with the Global Donor Working Group on Land, a newly formed group of bi-lateral and multi-lateral donors and development agencies, USAID led a data collection and visualization project that gathered information on land and resource governance programs from around the globe.

USAID welcomes The Coca-Cola Company’s recently announced commitments to ensure that its sugar suppliers protect the land rights of local communities. Coca-Cola - the world’s largest purchaser of sugar - agreed to revise its corporate Supplier Guiding Principles to incorporate principles that recognize and safeguard local communities’ and indigenous peoples’ rights to land and natural resources.