By M. Mercedes Stickler, Land Tenure and Evaluation Specialist, USAID.
Last month, I had the opportunity to take part in the inaugural Conference on Land Policy in Africa. This event—organized by the Land Policy Initiative—highlighted the fact that land is one of the most important development issues facing Africa today.
This study on “internally displaced population, gender and livelihoods in Kassala State, Eastern Sudan” was carried out to deepen the analytical work being conducted by the “Sustainable Livelihoods for Displaced and Vulnerable Communities in Eastern Sudan Project (SLDP)”.
The study found that logistics costs are
high due to transshipment costs and various forms of
payments. Many of these payments are imposed by the private
sector with little or no transparency on how or where the
costs are incurred. International trade corridors in
Cambodia therefore perform well in terms of time but not
cost. However, the corridors with transshipment have higher
costs than the national corridor between Phnom Penh and
In Kenya’s Ol Pusimoru community, twenty-two women were elected as community elders in 2013, up from 14 in 2012, and zero three years ago.
From negotiations over responsible agricultural investment in Rome to new research on gender equality in Rwanda to important steps in legal reform in Tajikistan, land rights continued to be a priority issue for the global community in 2014. Here are some of our favorite pieces on land rights from USAID and our partners from the past year.
If you cannot view, click here.Guest commentary by Christopher Seeley, Chief of Party of the USAID Honduras ProParque project.
One of the most vexing challenges in biodiversity conservation in developing countries is reconciling land tenure and land use issues that emerge when previously unprotected or unregulated ecosystems are placed under state control as part of a national protected areas system.
This week in Jakarta, Indonesia, the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (IOC-UNESCO) will hold a conference on the Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System 10 years after the Indian Ocean Tsunami: Achievements, Challenges, Remaining Gaps and Policy Perspectives. This gathering provides an opportunity to discuss the policy and programming challenges related to disaster risk reduction. Weak land governance and insecure land tenure needs to be a part of this important discussion.
Guest commentary by Robert Oberndorf, Resource Law Specialist, Tenure and Global Climate Change Project.
It is clear that climate change involves changes in temperature and precipitation and, therefore, directly affects land productivity. However, this is not the only channel for climatic change to affect agro-systems. Biodiversity is also subject to climatic change. The present paper illustrates a unique attempt to economically assess the potential effects of climate change induced impacts of biodiversity on the agricultural sector in terms of changes in land productivity, changes in agricultural output and, ultimately, changes in national GDPs.
The Global Donor Working Group on Land – a coalition of 23 bilateral and multilateral donors and development agencies committed to improving land governance – welcomes the endorsement of the Principles for Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Systems (RAI) by the UN Committee on World Food Security.
Guest commentary by Tiernan Mennen, Director, Land Tenure and Resource Rights Practice, Chemonics International, Inc.
With the endorsement of the Principles for Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Systems (RAI) in October, attention turns to how to reflect the principles and practices outlined in the RAI in foreign assistance and public and private investments. The United States’ global hunger and food security initiative, Feed the Future, already places responsible investment at the core of its programs--including clarifying land rights and maximizing the positive impact of agricultural investments on women, smallholder farmers, and families’ nutritional status.