Up to 2.5 billion people hold and use the world’s community lands, yet the tenure rights of women—who comprise more than half the population of the world’s Indigenous Peoples and local communities—are seldom acknowledged or protected by national laws.

Women's empowerment is considered a ‘prerequisite’ to achieving global food security. Gender systems, however, are diverse and complex. The nature and extent of gender inequity and the conditions necessary to empower women vary across countries, communities and regions. The study of different gender systems is thus fundamental to capture cross-cultural variations in gender specific needs and constraints to effectively address gender gaps.

Una de las características más sobresalientes del desarrollo de América Latina y el Caribe en el siglo pasado, fue la transición desde patrones de producción, distribución y consumo asociados al mundo rural y agrícola hacia otros vinculados con el desarrollo industrial y los servicios. Esto significó la consolidación del carácter urbano de la región. Las concentraciones urbanas son la base de crecientes aumentos en la productividad del capital y el trabajo; para mayores grados de especialización y de diversificación económico-productiva.

Sub-Saharan Africa has always been perceived as a land-abundant continent. Deininger & Byerlee (2011) estimate that the continent has the largest area of potentially available uncultivated land. Despite these abundant resources, the agricultural sector continues to be dominated by smallholder production that is characterized by high labor and low capital intensities – but still produces the majority of food in Africa (IFAD & UNEP, 2013).

Land is an important asset for rural households, and having secure land rights is important for poverty reduction. Despite the large body of literature on the relationship between land tenure security, livelihoods, and poverty, most of this literature is based on household-level data and does not consider possible intrahousehold inequalities in land ownership.

International Land Coalition infographic on why Land Rights are central to achieving the SDGs.

Geoffrey Payne outlines five fundamental propositions that are key to his understanding of tenure issues and policy options.

These are:

1) That access to affordable land with adequate security of tenure and associated rights is a pre-condition for realising the goal of adequate housing and poverty reduction;

2016 was the hottest year on record – the third consecutive record-breaking year. It was a sign that we have to act fast to enhance the resilience of dryland farmers, who not only have to contend with more extreme temperatures but also face rapidly depleting water resources and the destructive effects of new pests and disease.

Zimbabwe’s economy grew by 0.7 percent in 2016 despite the combined effect of the El Nino drought and domestic financial turmoil. The drought reduced agricultural output and increased food prices towards the end of the year, despite the government’s efforts to boost production and stabilize prices. The public provision of agricultural inputs, the creation of food-for-work programs, and the establishment of price supports for staple foods accentuated the government’s expansionary fiscal-policy stance.

The Global Donor Working Group on Land releases this policy brief to reiterate its commitment on the SDG indicator 1.4.2 for achieving global land tenure security. The policy brief clarifies the status of indicator 1.4.2 towards its implementation by countries, as well as informs how the Global Donor Working Group on Land is supporting the custodian agencies for this indicator (UN-Habitat and WB) to have it re-classified by the Inter-Agency Expert Group on SDG Indicators by October 2018.

Presentation at the LandAc conference in June 2017, by Thea Hilhorst, representative of the World Bank, custodian agency of the development of SDG indicator 1.4.2. 

Thea Hilhorst presents the approach to measuring this indicator and the available data that can be used.

Methodological supporting document for land indicator under SGD Goal 1, target 1.4.2