One of our main goals and missions at the Land Portal is to help democratize the information landscape on land. Our annual Data Stories Contest aims to do just this, by allowing all those using land data to be able to tell their stories in a compelling way.
More than a dozen land-related indicators are housed over five SDG goals, with data maintained by different custodian agencies. The Land Portal re-launched the SDG Land Tracker to help land stakeholders monitor developments and discussion.
This case study was originally published on the FAO AGROVOC site. Image: FAO/Luis Tato
1. Land Portal Foundation and LandVoc
Dear Friends and Colleagues:
We all know that 2021 was another challenging year for the world. It is all the sweeter that I find much to celebrate within the Land Portal community.
Our global partnerships have become stronger. User trust and satisfaction in the Portal are at their highest. Open data principles and concepts are becoming better understood. The land sector has made great strides in contextualizing key land issues vis-a-vis climate change, gender equity, and indigenous rights, among other issues.
The Land Portal works to embed land governance in open data discussions and vice versa. This primer is extracted from the recently published Open Up Guide for Land Governance.
The Land Portal, Global Data Barometer, and Open Data Charter are working together at the nexus of open data and land governance. This blog shares how we are bringing our complementary expertise and passions for more open and transparent land data systems.
The problem
The good governance of land is critical to the pursuit of sustainable development. Given that the land sector is often considered to be susceptible to corruption, open and transparent land data is seen as an opportunity to fight corruption. Following global trends, the land sector is increasingly engaging in efforts to make more land and spatial data open and freely available.
The Land Portal Foundation is Global Data Barometer’s (GDB) partner, which provided key input and support to develop the land module. The Land Portal works to develop an open land data ecosystem to improve decision making and policy through making land data and information more accessible and available.
Many expert vocabularies have emerged from specific and limited scientific fields such as medicine and botany. They have aimed to achieve precise understanding between experts in these fields based on exact definitions of the terms used and originally, in their early examples, through the widespread use of Arabic or Latin as international scientific languages.
There is some irony in that many of the terms – ‘thesaurus’, ‘taxonomy’, ‘controlled vocabulary’ ‘ontology’ – that are intended to bring order and clarity to our use of language in professional settings are themselves subject to diverse interpretations and application. This is in large part because they are used by a range of people working in different contexts with different purposes.
