STOCKHOLM, Sweden — Secure land rights are not only a matter of justice and human rights. They are also vital to achieving global goals on climate change, peace, and equality. This was a core part of the discussions at the Third International Conference on Community Land and Resource Rights earlier this month in Stockholm, Sweden, when global experts, private sector leaders, policymakers, and indigenous and community organizations came together to forge a plan to achieve these rights for indigenous peoples and local communities.
Convened by the Rights and Resources Initiative, the conference focused on three primary streams: rural and indigenous women’s rights and leadership; mechanisms to scale implementation from local to national level; and international support structures to advance community land rights.
“A conference like this one is a unique place where people come together from everywhere in the world, from all the sectors, with a lot of experience, and they share it,” Samuel Nguiffo, founder of the Center for Environment and Development, told Devex on the sidelines of the event. “You need to learn from the mistakes made elsewhere, and you also need to learn from good practices, from processes that worked, to inform what you want to do.”
Devex spoke to a wide range of experts in this field to find out their lessons learned from the conference and their plans to develop a shared path forward to scale up recognition of community and indigenous peoples’ land and resource rights. Watch the video above to learn more.
How can the international community come together to tackle the inequality and the marginalization of women, indigenous peoples, and rural communities? Devex and our partner, the Rights and Resources Initiative, are exploring the initiatives supporting land and resource rights, and the role of stakeholders across sectors to partner for impact.