Humans are the most populous large mammal on Earth today, and probably in all of geological history. This World Population Day, humans number in the vicinity of 7.5 to 7.6 billion individuals.

In the last five years, significant steps have been taken to put land tenure security as a priority in global policy frameworks, but also in implementation plans. A side event at CFS45, organised by the Global Donor Working Group on Land with other key players, took stock of progress. 

I had the privilege of representing the Land Portal Foundation at the FAO Expert consultation on “Knowledge sharing for agricultural innovations applicable for smallholders and family farmers in Europe and Central Asia”, which took place in Gödöllő (Hungary) from the 10-13 September 2018.

Land governance covers all activities associated with the management of land and natural resources that are required to fulfil political and social objectives.

Good and transparent land governance will serve a country's national resources management, the rights of its citizens, and lead to a reduction of poverty. In addition, sound land governance is crucial to achieving relevant sustainable development goals (SDGs).

Networks provide an increasingly popular organizational structure for collective action on land rights in Africa and elsewhere around the world, but sustaining networks’ impact, engagement, and resourcing can be challenging.

The world would be a pretty dull and hungry place if it weren’t for Indigenous Peoples and local communities.

Indigenous Peoples and local communities play a central role in feeding the world. They look after much of the world’s biodiversity, with at least 80% of planet’s biodiversity found in Indigenous territories and waters. And they have an incredible track record of protecting the climate by preventing deforestation and properly managing pasturelands.

The debate on agriculture and development is heated and, apparently, never ending. This is especially true of the role and position of peasant (or smallholder) agriculture, with people either vigorously defending the sector or saying that in time it will (and should) disappear. Prof. Olivier de Schutter is a clear exponent of the former line of thought, as is evident from his contribution ‘We want peasants’ on Land Portal (26 September, 2018).

This week in Geneva, the Human Rights Council is expected to take a position on the follow-up to a draft Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other Persons Working in Rural Areas. Five years after the start of the negotiations, we are at a turning point.

Disabled people have been increasingly recognised as the most marginalised group in any society. This group faces various structural, political and systemic barriers hindering their access, participation and contribution in the economy.

“We, the poor.” This is how Francisco Chicompa introduces the peasant families who live in Napai II, a village in the district of Mecuburi, Nampula province in Mozambique. The label stuck like glue: poor is what they were called, and so poor is what they were.  Despite this, the land in the region has provided food for him, his wife and his eleven children. The land has provided money to buy clothes and sent the children to school. The land has held memories of his ancestors, which he was of course obliged to pass on, intact, to future generations.

In 2015 the UN agreed a new tranche of global sustainable development goals, signed up to by all member states and due to be achieved by 2030. Among them was a target to increase not only the proportion of adults with legally documented property rights, but also the proportion of adults who perceived their property rights to be secure, whether legally documented or not.

Twenty years ago, I learned a valuable lesson about the power of land and inheritance rights to affirm the status and contributions of women. My father-in-law, then 80 years old, was dividing his land to his children. In doing so, he made a decision that was unusual for a man in Kenya– he gave a piece of land to me, his daughter-in-law. He had come to believe that it was only just to affirm the role that women play in contributing to the household and caring for aging parents.