Discover hidden stories and unheard voices on land governance issues from around the world. This is where the Land Portal community shares activities, experiences, challenges and successes.
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One year ago, thanks to a Solutions Journalism Network LEDE Fellowship and in collaboration with the Land Portal, I started a project to find stories of responses to the damage caused to the land and environment. During this time, I affirmed that communities and people around the world are working to protect and heal the environment, even if those stories hardly make it to the mainstream media.
Along with GIZ and the National Agency for Spatial Planning, known as ANAT, in Senegal, we co-hosted a webinar, “Uncovering Land Data Opportunities in Senegal,” on 31 January 2023. The panel brought together open data and land governance experts to discuss the state of land information in Senegal – focusing on the findings from the SONI Senegal Report – and the way forward to a more inclusive, open and transparent land data ecosystem in Senegal.
Mark Duffield and Nicholas Stockton write how the ecologically sustainable, communally managed subsistence pastoralism in Somalia has been displaced by militarised extractive ranching. Challenging mainstream accounts of the “drought” Duffield and Stockton argue the current crisis is the result of decades of bad development and relief interventions that have promoted impoverishment and hunger.
On 15 December 2022 the LAND-at-scale Knowledge Management team hosted a webinar Land tenure security revisited: Do we know what we need to know? that presented the preliminary findings of a study on tenure security authored by Guus van Westen, and Jaap Zevenbergen. The presentation of the study was followed by breakout sessions on tenure security and its relationship to women's land rights, the role of the state, land conflicts, and economic development facilitated by land experts and panelists who reported back to the plenary on the discussions with their respective reflections on the findings of the study.
Tanzania’s youth population (defined as women and men between the ages of 15 and 35) constitutes about 35% of the country’s population. In Tanzania, youth engagement in agriculture is considered vital, given that youth form the largest part of the population and labour force in the country.
Multiple studies indicate that secure rights to land and other property can protect women from experiencing domestic violence by strengthening their position within their families or by providing women with a stronger ability to exit abusive relationships.
Uganda’s extractives industry is growing exponentially and attracting both foreign and domestic mining companies. But too often, mineral-rich communities fail to benefit. Here, Kevin Bakulumpagi of ANARDE, Uganda discusses how Community Development Agreements can ensure affected communities both benefit from mining operations and are meaningfully engaged in agreements regulating mining activities
The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act 2016 which seeks to create a more professional real estate sector and create a level playing field in transactions between developers and homebuyers, has the potential to assist in reducing property related disputes.
Wetlands are among the most important natural resources in Uganda. They protect the country’s water resources, and are important for sustaining agricultural productivity and rural livelihoods, particularly in areas with low or unpredictable rainfall, land scarcity, or where surrounding land has low potential for agriculture.
As the world salutes the culmination of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP 27, with adopting a ‘loss and damage’ fund, today also marks the beginning of Africa Industrialization Week as we observe Africa Industrialization Day.
In September 2022, Sierra Leone enacted unprecedented new laws related to land, climate and sustainable development – the Customary Land Rights Act 2022 and the National Land Commission Act 2022. The webinar focused on the Customary Land Rights Act 2022, and its transformative power to support communities in protecting their land rights and pursue sustainable development.
When Fatima Zahrae Taribi, a 20-year-old Moroccan climate justice advocate, met Luz Edith Morales Jimenez, a young land defender from Michoacán, Mexico, she wondered how they could communicate. Zahrae speaks French, Arabic, and English, and Morales speaks Spanish and Purépecha, an Indigenous language from her region. Yet, when they met in a climate camp in Tunisia ahead of the international climate conference COP27, the UN's annual international environmental conference, they understood each other without needing words.