Imagine you're a local sustainability officer developing an initiative to reduce emissions. But you don't know how many emissions the city produces, or where they're coming from. You don't know who the city's biggest energy users are, how many cars are on the road, or the amount of waste produced every year. And even if you can set goals for reducing emissions, you have no way of measuring progress against them.

The history of land rights in Colombia is a centuries-old tale of colonialism, highly concentrated land ownership and unsuccessful agrarian reforms. Fifty years of civil strife have left vast sections of the country’s land undocumented, vulnerable to land record manipulation and outright lawlessness.

As part of the Feed the Future initiative, USAID is helping the Government of Tanzania to improve communities’ understanding of land rights, support village land use planning, and clarify, document and certify property rights.

The dominant debates about land in South Africa often focus on the transfer of land from a few white hands to the black majority. The discussion seldom unpacks who constitutes the “black majority” as this is not a homogeneous group. In instances where the debate touches on land use, again the focus is often limited to agricultural production and whether or not small-scale farmers are productive. This narrow framework clearly has to be broadened and we need to ask deeper and more strategic questions than the ones we have been asking.

On World Water Day, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) launched the ‘International Decade for Action: Water for Sustainable Development’ (2018-2028). Promoting the integrated management of water resources, the Decade aims to create a platform for sharing good practices, advocacy, networking and partnership-building at all levels. It will support achievement of the water-related aspects of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, and the Paris Agreement on climate change.

By Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Chairman of the Advisory Board of CCSI, University Professor at Columbia University, and Director of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network

In March, the Trump Administration released a new budget proposal that would cut funding to the Department of State and U.S. Agency for International Development by 28 percent. The proposal also reduces funding to the United Nations for ongoing climate change efforts.

Women play important roles in all smallholder farming systems. Advocates for women farmers often claim that “women produce 60-80% of the world’s food.” Occasionally, we are told that this statistic refers to food produced in developing countries, or food crops in sub-Saharan Africa; the reference point is vague. But the idea is clear – women produce more food than men.

Ask a land rights defender if there is a human right to land, and she will likely say “Yes, without a doubt.” For people around the world, land is a source of food, shelter, and livelihoods; it’s an economic asset, a crucial safety net, a link with culture and social identity, even a living relative or ancestor. Given their importance, land rights are surely human rights.

The 16^th of October marks World Food Day, a reminder to the international community of the criticality of treating food security as a 21^st Century priority if sustainable development, peace and security and the realisation of human rights are to be achieved.

Farmers in Mali have gained critical new rights to their traditional land—and rural communities have gained much-needed economic stability—as a result of a historic new law.

This blog originally appeared on IISD

Farmers in Mali have gained critical new rights to their traditional land—and rural communities have gained much-needed economic stability—as a result of a historic new law.