The global initiative supports Helsinki’s goal of achieving a more significant role for cities in implementing the sustainable development goals.

The United Nations’ Social Impact Investing Initiative has opened a new office in Helsinki, further bolstering the UN’s presence in Finland.

The Social Impact Investing Initiative (S3I) of the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) is a programme for promoting the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs) in developing countries.

Yesterday, the day before Indigenous Day, the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) included indigenous rights in its Special Report on Climate Change and Land.

This is a landmark action. In doing this, the IPCC have recognized that Indigenous peoples are crucial in combatting global climate change, by preventing deforestation and preserving ecosystems.

The year was 2009, and Typhoon Ketsana — known locally in the Philippines as Ondoy — had just struck Metropolitan Manila, Philippines. One of the strongest typhoons to have made landfall in the megacity, Ketsana displaced thousands of families and left them without their source of livelihood and income. I was a researcher then, assigned to do a rapid assessment of Tatalon, a village in Quezon City, known to be a site of informal settlement families.

Lands managed by indigenous people possess the greatest levels of biodiversity. This is according to a study led by researchers at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and published in the journal Environmental Science & Policy.

The team compared levels of biodiversity in 15,621 areas across three of the largest countries in the world – Australia, Brazil, and Canada.

Land rights have direct bearing on the incomes of marginalized individuals and communities, and the potential to transform their living conditions by breaking the cycle of poverty.

he Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) launched two new publications, ‘Forest Futures, Sustainable pathway for forests, landscapes and people in Asia Pacific Region’ and ‘Forestry Sector Review: Pakistan’. The reports were launched by the Advisor to the Prime Minister on Climate Change, Malik Amin Aslam and FAO Representative in Pakistan, Minà Dowlatchahi in Islamabad.

Government should consider upgrading the city’s Karail slum community instead of summarily evicting its 200,000 people for a software park

magine a community of 200,000. Convivial, walkable, six times the density of Manhattan but with a smaller ecological footprint. It provides low-cost services and affordable housing mixed with productive uses such as recycling, farming and trading. It’s a city within a city.

Protecting the world’s remaining tropical forest cover from natural resource extraction is essential if the worst of climate change is to be avoided, and the rights of people who depend on those forests are to be respected. For this to happen, politicians have to see political advantage in voting for laws and budgets that promote such protection.

Women Movement for Sustainable Development (WOMUD) on Tuesday, July 23, 2019, launched the Women’s Participation in the Natural Resources Sectors Report under the title, “Strengthening the Voices of Women in the ongoing land debate in the country.”

The purpose of the program is to promote women’s access to control over productive resources, including land, natural resources that guarantee their rights to participate in decision-making and leadership processes.

The study affected 15 communities in Grand Bassa and Nimba counties from October 24, 2018, to January 23, 2019.

Indonesia’s Agrarian and Spatial Planning Ministry and the National Land Agency (BPN) have an ambitious target of distributing 60 million land certificates for land ownership by 2025. 11 million land certificates are expected to be distributed in 2019, under its Agrarian Reform program. The program’s intended purpose is to restructure ownerships, tenures and uses of agrarian resources, especially lands. 

NEW YORK, USA – Without the full participation and leadership of women, “we have no hope” of realizing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the president of the United Nations General Assembly told gender equality leaders on Monday.

“This is an obvious point to make, but it is, sadly, one that we cannot repeat enough”, she said, opening the day-long discussion at UN Headquarters in New York to identify best practices aimed to knock down barriers hindering women’s full participation and leadership, in what she called “our shared mission this year”.

The Land Rights Act (LRA), which was passed into law in 2018 by members of the 54th Legislature, will serve as an impetus that will holistically empower women across the country, Cecelia Kuetee, a resident of Nimba County, has said.

Madam Kuetee expressed the hope to see a society where women, who she said have been marginalized, will be empowered, especially with unhindered access to land.

She recently gained access to her father’s land and cocoa farm, but said a robust awareness exercise of the LRA and supporting organizations remain pivotal to achieving her goal.