I had the privilege of representing the Land Portal Foundation at the FAO Expert consultation on “Knowledge sharing for agricultural innovations applicable for smallholders and family farmers in Europe and Central Asia”, which took place in Gödöllő (Hungary) from the 10-13 September 2018.
Fred Nelson is executive director of Maliasili and Michael Taylor is director of International Land Coalition
Land rights have finally been invited to the party - sitting at the intersection of some of the world’s most urgent development, environmental, and human rights priorities.
Commercial agriculture has driven land use changes and not only affected millions of hectares of forested land, but also farmers’ and local people’s land rights. Efforts to combat deforestation are at the forefront of the international aid agenda, and clarifying and securing land rights is important for its success.
With the inclusion of several land-related indicators in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), land data collection and monitoring has reached an unprecedented momentum. There is a palpable positive drive within both global and local civil society to contribute to the official process through advocacy, data collection and international monitoring efforts. The broad consensus is that data and information are building blocks that support better informed decision and policy making at all levels.
On September 19, Liberian President George Manneh Weah signed into law the Land Rights Bill (LRB), a landmark piece of legislation that recognizes the rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities to their customary lands and gives customary land the same standing as private land in Liberia.
A revolution is underway. In Latin America, it has likely crested. In Southeast Asia and West Africa, it is moving apace. In East Africa, it is at its most intense.
It is brewing most remarkably not in storied national capitals and megacities, but in the medium sized, second-tier cities, less watched by governments and journalists. Cities that might double in size in 12-15 years, yet already under-resourced.
It is a demographic revolution: significant population growth which drives the epochal growth of city dwelling, as the world becomes ever more urban.
Until today, the world had no internationally comparable data on citizens’ perceptions of the security their property rights; no way of tracking how people evaluated the likelihood of their home or other land being taken from them.
The world would be a pretty dull and hungry place if it weren’t for Indigenous Peoples and local communities.
Indigenous Peoples and local communities play a central role in feeding the world. They look after much of the world’s biodiversity, with at least 80% of planet’s biodiversity found in Indigenous territories and waters. And they have an incredible track record of protecting the climate by preventing deforestation and properly managing pasturelands.
A CLASSIC RESPONSE from governments and businesses in recent time is not just to characterize legitimate grievances by Indigenous Peoples and local communities as anti- government, anti-development, and anti-investment. They are waging wars against Indigenous Peoples and individuals who are protecting the planet and its people by criminalizing their legitimate grievances and then threatening, arresting, intimidating, and imprisoning those who dare challenge this mode of development.
In 2015 the UN agreed a new tranche of global sustainable development goals, signed up to by all member states and due to be achieved by 2030. Among them was a target to increase not only the proportion of adults with legally documented property rights, but also the proportion of adults who perceived their property rights to be secure, whether legally documented or not.
Soumya Chattopadhyay takes a look at Prindex’s 2017 trial data from India, and raises questions to drive future research.
In October, Prindex will publish our first full tranche of data from 15 countries worldwide, and a total of 33 by the year’s end. While preparing our final survey, we conducted two trial runs, including one in India, Colombia and Tanzania in 2017. That data provides an insight into some of the questions that our full survey data – eventually to cover around 140 countries – may help answer.