LAND-at-scale

The second LAND-at-scale (LAS) exchange took place from June 26^th to June 28^th, 2023. Sixty partners came together in Utrecht, the Netherlands to exchange lessons learned and explore common challenges. As of 2023, ten country projects are currently being implemented under the LAS program, namely Burkina Faso, Burundi, Chad, Colombia, Mali, Mozambique, the Palestinian Territories, Somalia, Rwanda and Uganda. All countries were represented and almost all implementing partners were present at the Exchange.

Wetlands are among the most important natural resources in Uganda. They protect the country’s water resources, and are important for sustaining agricultural productivity and rural livelihoods, particularly in areas with low or unpredictable rainfall, land scarcity, or where surrounding land has low potential for agriculture.

From 6-18 November, Egypt hosts the COP27 Climate Summit. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Despite this long trajectory and the progress made, climate change has increasingly severe effects across the world. The LAND-at-scale program acknowledges the central role of climate change. In a short series of blogs, the knowledge management team highlights the diverse impact that climate change has on communities across the world, and how LAND-at-scale projects contribute to adaptation and mitigation measures on the ground.

Building solutions for long-term sustainable livelihoods in urban contexts

This blog describes the common trends and actions across the projects, and is enriched with additional insights from the LANDac Annual Conference 2022 and other events.

On 27-28 June 2022, RVO organized the first annual LAND-at-scale exchange, bringing together over fifty LAND-at-scale project partners, knowledge management partners, Committee members as well as representatives from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs for an in-depth introduction of all LAND-at-scale stakeholders and facilitate a learning exchange.

The Global Land Tool Network (GLTN) has a lot of experience across the world in implementing tenure security projects. Like no other, they understand the threat insecurity of tenure has on people’s livelihoods and food security and have made it their mission to secure tenure rights for all. LAND-at-scale is working with GLTN in Uganda to design a scalable approach towards improved tenure security and sustainable land use for men, women and youth on customary land.

As observed in many countries, women’s access to land in Burundi is hampered by  customary practices. ZOA, VNG and MiPAREC are scaling up a gender-sensitive approach to strengthening women’s rights to land. Experiences from the past prove that sensitization and awareness raising are for a meaningful and successful outcome for women. But there are also many challenges and pitfalls when it comes to working on a topic as women’s land rights.

Land has profound meaning to all people. It represents ‘home’ and cultural values, political power and participation in decision making processes; it can provide services for living such as food production and clean water and shelter and it can be used as an economic asset for income generation, as collateral for credit and as a means of holding savings for the future. Though women contribute to almost half of the world’s agricultural production, a mere 15% of these women have legal rights to the land that they work on.

There is an immense pressure on land in Uganda. The country has a rapidly growing population and is host to the world’s third largest refugee population. Particularly poor people struggle to get access to healthy food. Agriculture practices need to become more efficient and focused on the domestic market. The Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (EKN) in Uganda works to improve food security in selected areas in the country. Among several food security projects, the EKN works with the LAND-at-scale program to improve land governance.

The main objective of the LAND-at-scale program is to directly strengthen essential land governance components for men, women and youth that have the potential to contribute to structural, just, sustainable and inclusive change at scale. An ambitious objective, that cannot be achieved in isolation. Alignment is, therefore, a key factor in all LAND-at-scale activities - be it at project level for our country interventions or through our collaborative approach to knowledge management.