The 2025 Global Land Forum (GLF) is convening more than 1,000 participants from over 90 countries to shape agendas that address some of the most urgent and complex land-related challenges of our time.
This year’s Forum takes place in Colombia, a country where these global pressures converge in tangible ways. Land inequality, food insecurity, and climate impacts are immediate lived realities, shaped by decades of armed conflict and interrupted peacebuilding efforts. At the same time, Colombia is witnessing bold efforts to chart a new course. Renewed land policies, grassroots mobilization, and reform initiatives from government actors are contributing to a growing sense of momentum. The GLF creates a space where local experience meets global dialogue—where those most affected by land injustice help shape the solutions.
To support participants in engaging deeply with this year’s Forum and to offer them broader context for the discussions, we’ve curated a set of resources available on the Land Portal.
Why Colombia? Why Now?
Colombia is once again part of a global conversation on land, justice, and post-conflict transformation. As the country works to fulfill key provisions of the 2016 Peace Agreement with FARC, the current government has taken up the long-delayed challenge of agrarian reform. With renewed political will and the energy of social movements, a deliberate strategy has been designed and implemented. Often described as a “sandwich” approach, it combines bottom-up pressure from rural movements with institutional action from above (see Revisiting Chicoral: Colombia’s Sandwich Strategy for Land Reform, Then and Now). The goal is to address Colombia’s deeply unequal landholding structure, long recognized as a driver of rural exclusion and conflict.
There are signs of sustained progress. Peasant organizations are mobilizing with greater strength, and rural development institutions are being revitalized. The government is employing available judicial and administrative tools to formalize land titles and support redistribution initiatives. Still, transformation is slow.
A key constraint is the ongoing reliance on the “willing buyer, willing seller” model—a market-based approach designed to avoid confrontation with powerful landowners and reduce the risk of violence. The flagged challenges include fiscal burdens, uneven cost distribution, and growing evidence that the model has failed to deliver meaningful change. Voluntary agreement is slow, requiring numerous validations and vulnerable to many veto votes.
Even so, the current administration is committed to pushing further. Their approach goes beyond merely formalizing land titles, aiming instead to implement a broader redistributive land policy alongside inclusive rural development initiatives. At its core is the recognition that land formalization without redistribution may reinforce existing hierarchies rather than dismantle them, and that land without access to productive assets leaves peasant economies doomed to reproduce patterns of inequality. A debate in Congress over the creation of a special agrarian jurisdiction is ongoing and will determine the extent to which non-market mechanisms are placed at the center of reform. This approach could mark a turning point for Colombia’s rural areas—and offer valuable insights for land governance efforts elsewhere.
Understanding the Context: Land and Peacebuilding in Colombia
To better understand Colombia’s evolving land governance challenges and milestones, we encourage participants to explore the Colombia Country Profile on the Land Portal. Colombia is one of the most biodiverse countries in the world. It is also a nation where land has long been central to both conflict and the pursuit of peace.
The profile provides a comprehensive overview of Colombia’s land governance system, tracing its legal foundations, historical roots, and reform efforts. We explore how Colombia’s violent history has been shaped, in large part, by competing claims to land. Disputes over ownership, access, and use have driven displacement and fueled decades of unrest. Recent efforts to harmonize land laws are closely tied to the 2016 Peace Accord, which recognizes land reform as central to building a more just and inclusive future.
But the scale of the challenge is immense. Armed conflict and narco-trafficking have left a legacy of distorted land ownership—over 8 million hectares were abandoned or seized due to violence. Land became a tool of control, power, and financial gain. As of 2021, only about 15% of rural land was formally registered, highlighting the depth of informality and exclusion.
Published in 2022, the profile is structured around ten key themes ranging from legal frameworks and land tenure classifications to community land rights and land reform. The profile reveals how land governance continues to shape power and opportunity in Colombia. For instance, it shows that legal protections often fail to guarantee actual access — especially for women, Indigenous peoples, and Afro-descendant communities. It also illustrates how post-conflict land use decisions can create tension between conservation and development goals.
Ultimately, the profile demonstrates that land governance is not static; it is a dynamic and contested process that must be revisited and reformed over time. For practitioners, researchers, and policymakers, it offers both context and direction toward more equitable land systems.
The Role of Land Data and Information
No land reform effort can succeed without reliable, transparent, and accessible data—especially amid increasing digitalization and calls for tech-enabled democracy. The State of Land Information (SOLI) Index Colombia plays an important role in this context. It evaluates the openness and completeness of land data across countries using ten global open data principles. It assesses not only availability but also how data is structured, published, and governed to support citizen empowerment and equitable governance.
In Colombia, the SOLI Index reveals that land data is only partially available and inconsistently open. While there have been efforts to centralize information—such as the National Land Agency’s GeoViewer platform—access remains limited. Login requirements, outdated formats, and incomplete datasets continue to undermine both transparency and usability. In some areas, gains in data openness have even been reversed.
Different types of land information show uneven progress. Legal and policy documents are generally accessible but often lack open licenses and are not easily reusable. Land tenure data, mostly drawn from the National Agricultural Survey, is limited in scope and not fully integrated with the broader land registry. Access to cadastral data is restricted to users with prior knowledge of parcel numbers or locations, reducing its practical value.
Digital land use data—such as municipal land use plans (POTs)—is available through a national portal, but many plans are outdated. Data on commercial, industrial, residential, and informal land use is often missing. Land value data is scarce and typically available only in PDF format, complicating analysis. Similarly, data on infrastructure, development, and expropriation is fragmented or inaccessible in user-friendly formats.
Improving land data systems is not just a technical challenge—it is a political and social imperative. Transparent, open, and inclusive data systems are essential for strengthening tenure security and enabling marginalized communities to exercise their rights. In Colombia, where land inequality has long fueled conflict, these systems are especially critical. The recent legal recognition of peasants as a group requiring special protection adds urgency to the need for accessible, equitable land data.
Looking Ahead
The Global Land Forum provides a unique opportunity to reflect on Colombia’s land reform journey while learning from global experiences and forging new alliances. As we finish this important week, one thing is clear: the pursuit of fair land access is also a pursuit of peace, democracy, and dignity.
We hope that the conversations ahead will deepen our understanding, strengthen our networks, and sharpen our collective strategies. As Colombia advances its reform agenda, data governance must be treated as a core element of success. This means going beyond digital tools—toward systems that are open, standardized, and centered on the needs of communities.
These themes will be central to discussions at the Forum. By strengthening land data systems, we move closer to land governance that supports justice, accountability, and lasting transformation.
