Responsible Land Policy in Uganda (RELAPU) is a project implemented by the German International Cooperation (GIZ) and financed by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). BMZ created the Special Initiative “One World, No Hunger”, aimed at eradicating extreme hunger and poverty. Within this special initiative, RELAPU is part of the Global Programme on Responsible Land Policy currently implemented in eight countries.

The European Union Land Governance Programme funds 18 individual country-level projects in Africa, Asia and Latin America, all of which address tenure issues, and are implemented alongside various partners, among which are government agencies, civil society organizations, bilateral and multilateral organizations and private contractors.

Limiting global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius and better even to 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to Article 2 paragraph 1 of the Paris Agreement requires global zero emissions in a very short time. These targets imply that not only emissions from degraded peatlands have to be avoided, but conservation and rewetting of peatlands are also necessary to figure as sinks to compensate for unavoidable residual emissions. However, with regard to instruments for meeting these targets, measuring, depicting, and baseline definition are difficult for greenhouse gas emissions from peatlands.

In recent decades, mechanisms for observation and information production have proliferated in an attempt to meet the growing needs of stakeholders to access dynamic data for the purposes of informed decision-making. In the land sector, a growing number of land observatories are producing data and ensuring its transparency. We hypothesize that these structures are being developed in response to the need for information and knowledge, a need that is being driven by the scale and diversity of land issues.

One of the key aspects of the Mozambican legal framework for land is that Mozambican nationals can acquire tenure rights through inheritance, via peaceful occupation or through customary channels These usufruct tenure rights, known by the Portuguese acronym ‘DUAT’ (Direito de Uso e Aproveitamento da Terra), can be held individually or jointly.

Rhe North-East Land Conference, organized by the Martin Luther Christian University (MLCU), Shillong, North-Eastern Region Community Resource Management Programme (NERCORMP), Shillong; North East Network (NEN), NRMC-Centre for Land Governance (NRMC-CLG); and Rongmei Naga Baptist Convention (RNBA), Manipur evident the significance tenure dynamics and development paradigms in North East Region deliberating on land, laws, locals and livelihoods on 30-31st January, 2020 at Shillong. 

Based on practical examples and on-going discussions, this paper critically reflects on prerequisites and conditions to be observed for open land data to contribute to increased transparency and better land governance. Moreover, the paper touches on the question of what open land data and transparency can mean for addressing land corruption which negatively affects the livelihoods and prosperity of many men and women globally.

This report provides a summary of an online workshop on March 16th 2020, organised in place of a planned fringe meeting of the World Bank Land and Poverty Conference which was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2-hour digital workshop brought together over 40 participants from across the world to discuss key data and key open data use-cases for land governance. This report is written based on workshop recordings and shared notes.

In May 2019, a complaint was lodged with CAO by members of 22 communities from the Margibi and Bong Counties in Liberia (the “Complainants”), supported by the NGOs Green Advocates International (GAI), Alliance for Rural Democracy (ARD), Natural Resource Women Platform (NRWP), and the Yeagbamah National Congress for Human Rights (YNCHR) (hereafter referred to collectively as the “Salala Affected Indigenous Communities Support Organizations”).

Innovative technologies for land governance can promote clear land tenure and effective land administration, reduce corruption, and support economic growth. Mobile technologies offer real-time access to information and open communication between people and government services. These technologies are revolutionizing land governance around the world; however, without additional steps to ensure that women and men equitably benefit from the technology revolution, the application of these technologies may amplify the preexisting inequalities that women face.

The purpose of this study is to explore the challenges of women on land rights, in Tanzania customary practices often required woman to access land through their fathers, brothers, husbands or other men who control the land, so this makes women vulnerable and decreases agricultural productivity. When women loses their connection to this male relative, either through death, divorce or migration, they can lose their land, home and means of supporting themselves and their families.

In Zambia, security of tenure for communities residing under customary land tenure settings has in recent years increasingly come under threat owing to the pressures of high rate of urbanization, speculation, subdivision and conversion to state land, which effectively excludes marginal populations from accessing resources for their land. While customary land is a major resource for most Zambians, the inadequacy or total lack of documentation leads to tenure insecurity, making people susceptible to forced displacements, and frequent land disputes.