In many countries men control who gets to use, own, and make decisions about land.

“We used to stay in a corner, quiet. If someone came to take our land or exploit our forests, we did not have the courage to try to stop them.” These words from a woman in Mecoburi, Mozambique reflect how women across the world often feel powerless to defend their rights to land and natural resources. For rural communities, land means everything, from the ability to produce crops for food and income to leveraging financial assets.

Secure tenure and effective governance are central to the future of natural resources and agriculture. Although important on their own, tenure and governance are also embedded in the solutions to key global challenges: climate change; environmental management; poverty; gender equity and women’s empowerment; and nutrition and health.

Gender equality guidelines will motivate Zambia’s traditional leaders to champion women’s rights in land and resource management

In Africa women play an integral role in the continent’s agriculture sector, representing up to 60 percent of the agricultural labour force in some countries. In Tanzania, agriculture accounts for the largest share of employment, more than 80 percent of women are engaging in agricultural activities and subsequently contributing to the country’s food requirements.

In sub-Saharan Africa, less than 13 percent of women aged 20-49 have rights to land, according to research by the World Bank. Therefore, securing their land rights remains a very crucial matter to boost their socio-economic empowerment. 

The effectiveness of sustainable land use governance can be undermined if local affected people perceive land-use policies as not reflecting social objectives, or as ‘unjust.’ To transform externally-conceived sustainability principles from the international level into on-the-ground practice, involves the interplay of various organizations and peoples from the government, civil society, and the private sector.

Our food systems are in urgent need of transformation, as humanity faces one of our biggest challenges yet; feeding a future population of 10 billion people with safe and nutritious food while keeping a healthy planet. Our food system has the power to tip the scales and transform the future of our planet and humankind.

There is an underlying tension in the land rights movement that is rarely addressed head on, which is the perception that securing women’s land rights threatens community land rights. Community land rights are typically held by indigenous people, small-scale and subsistence farmers, pastoralists, herders and many other groups who are directly dependent on land for their livelihoods but whose land tenure is often the most precarious.

After three days of intense discussion covering the breadth of land governance issues focusing on the theme of Land, Crisis and Resilience, Dr. Joanny Bélair, Postdoctoral researcher from Utrecht University and LANDac, had the unique opportunity to Chair the closing Session of the LANDac Conference 2021. Closing session panelists were Dr.

Knowledge management and learning are at the heart of the LAND-at-scale program. On June 29^th at a pre-event of the LANDac conference, the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO), LANDac and the International Land Coalition (ILC) officially announced their collaboration to implement the knowledge management (KM) component of the program.

PhD research provides key inputs to strengthen our knowledge base on land access, land governance and challenges related to development, crisis and resilience. This is why LANDac reserves a special place in the programme to discuss their contributions.

This session zoomed in on the local situation and challenges faced by grassroots communities and women in some low-Income countries. It provided an overview of support provided by Civil Society organizations (and governments) facilitating communities, women in particular, to step up the efforts to strengthen their land rights and to generate resilience in face of the climate and COVID-19 challenges they are facing.

More secure land tenure provides much better opportunities to face climate and COVID-19 challenges by investing in high biodiversity local food & income systems.