News on Land

Land Portal Foundation and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) launch thematic portfolio on land conflicts

Application Closing Date - 31 Jul 2017

Job Start Date - 10 Aug, 2017

Duration - 10 August 2017 to 22 September 2017

Location - Remote

BACKGROUND

The Caux Dialogue on Land and Security (CDLS), a partnership initiative, has called for scaling up land restoration efforts around the world to achieve land degradation neutrality by 2030. In their seven-point communiqué, CDLS participants emphasized land restoration as central to implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement on climate. SDG target 15.3 calls for striving to achieve a land degradation-neutral world by 2030.

Rural women at the forefront of issues related to land, environment and natural resources are particularly at risk

MUMBAI, July 18 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Women human rights defenders in Thailand are increasingly at risk of violence, threats and harassment since a May 2014 coup, a report said, highlighting the growing concern that the military government is failing to uphold civil rights.

Transparency International recently teamed up with a graduate consulting group from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs to analyse the intersectionality of land, corruption, and gender in Uganda, and the potential for tech to empower women in the country. Here's what the team discovered:

Land, corruption, and information communication technologies (ICTs) are complex and dynamic issues, playing significant roles in Ugandans’ lives. On one hand, they promote or even generate wealth, but on the other, they create or increase vulnerability.

In Guatemala, one of the world’s largest silver deposits reaps millions for its Canadian owners but for local farmers the price is their land and even their lives

Deep underground, buried in the lush hills of southern Guatemala, lies a veritable treasure trove: silver, tonnes of it, one of the largest deposits in the world.

Environmental groups have been pressing the government to stop the trade, citing its serious impact on coastal ecosystems and surrounding land

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Cambodia has banned all sand exports on environmental grounds, the Ministry of Mines and Energy said on Wednesday, officially ending the sale of sand to Singapore which has for years used it to reclaim land along its coasts.

As 2017 High Level Political Forum takes place in New York during 10-19 July 2017, ASIA takes its position to ensure that Land Rights is one of the crucial element to achieve the SDGs.

"We think it's a crisis when one-in-three households - one-in-three citizens that live in cities - don't have adequate, secure or affordable housing"

TEPIC, Mexico, July 12 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Booming cities in developing nations should upgrade slums, build on underused land and promote rental choice to tackle a fast-growing crisis caused by a shortage of affordable housing, researchers said on Wednesday.

Public Statement

New York, 10 July 2017 – Fifteen indigenous peoples’ representatives from various Asian countries, including Bangladesh, Nepal, India and Malaysia are participating in the HLPF this year taking place at the UN Headquarters in New York from 10 to 19 July 2017 under the theme “Eradicating poverty and promoting prosperity in a changing world”. They are among the 2000-plus participants from various sectors, including governments, private sector and civil society.

Temer’s unelected government and its neoliberal austerity agenda are greatly threatening the lives of Brazil’s Indigenous tribes.

Indigenous groups in Brazil are under threat — as right-wing government officials drastically slash funding to an agency meant to protect them, already leading to increased homicides over land dispute issues.