Sierra Leone, a small country of about 7 million people in West Africa, known for its mineral wealth in diamonds, gold, bauxite, iron ore and rutile, is also naturally endowed with fertile land for agriculture, which over the years has attracted multi-national companies who come in with fabulous promises of development to the people but leave them further impoverished and cheated out of their God-given resources.
 

The LAND-at-scale programme got a great response to the second call for ideas. The programme received 25 new ideas from 19 different countries. Support continues for enhancing land governance and tenure security. This is evident in the response and effort from embassies, NGOs and knowledge institutes.

Current LAND-at-scale portfolio status

In October 2019, approval was given to 13 promising ideas. LAND-at-scale has been working closely with embassies, knowledge institutes and NGOs to transform these ideas into land governance projects.

The Land Portal is an independent non-profit based in the Netherlands, delivering a clear strategy to draw together reliable and trustworthy evidence for use in program development, advocacy campaigning and policy formulation for better land governance.

Fitch Ratings-Hong Kong-06 May 2020: China's new policy granting greater autonomy to provincial-level governments over land conversions and farmland acquisitions will assist fiscal and economic performance in the medium to long term, via increased governance efficiency of land management on the local level, Fitch Ratings says. Still, Fitch believes the reforms maintain the protection of farmland as a top priority, thus an aggressive conversion plan at the national level appears unlikely for environmental and agricultural reasons.

GLTN’s Social Tenure Domain Model (STDM) has acquired a surprising application in the identification of vulnerable households. A case in point is in Nepal where the GLTN in collaboration with UN-Habitat Nepal Country Office, and its local partner Community Self Reliance Centre (CSRC) have been implementing the “Support to Land Reform Initiatives in Nepal” project.

Rome, 20 April 2020 - With the COVID-19 pandemic and economic slowdown threatening the lives and livelihoods of the world’s most vulnerable people, the UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) today committed US$40 million, and launched an urgent appeal for additional funds, to support farmers and rural communities to continue growing and selling food.