Women’s secure access to land, housing, and resources is a fundamental pillar of economic stability, social inclusion, and sustainable development. Across the Arab region, however, legal barriers, customary norms, and institutional challenges continue to restrict women’s land tenure rights, limiting their ability to invest, build wealth, and participate in decision-making.

The 2025 Arab Land Conference marked an important milestone in the global effort to protect housing and property rights for refugees and displaced persons with the launch of the Pinheiro Principles Handbook for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. This publication—developed through years of consultations, case studies, and collaborative efforts by UN agencies (FAO, IOM, OHCHR, UN-Habitat, NRC, and UNHCR)—aims to provide concrete guidance on implementing the Pinheiro Principles to restore the housing and land rights of displaced populations in the region.

The High-Level Session on Land Management in Times of Crisis at the Third Arab Land Conference convened policymakers, experts, and practitioners to explore how effective land governance can mitigate these challenges, prevent future conflicts, and drive resilience.

As the Arab region grapples with rapid urbanization, rising land costs, and the challenges of climate change, governments and private stakeholders are looking to digital innovation as a game-changer in land governance. The High-Level Session on Land Sector Innovation for Sustainable Investments and Housing brought together ministers, policymakers, and private sector leaders to explore how advanced technologies—such as GIS, AI, 3D cadastres, and blockchain—can transform land governance, enhance investment opportunities, and ensure housing accessibility.

Setting the Stage for Land Governance Transformation

In a rapidly urbanizing Arab region facing pressing challenges such as climate change, land scarcity, forced displacement, and governance gaps, the Third Arab Land Conference convened in Morocco to chart a path forward. Ministers, international experts, and key stakeholders gathered to discuss sustainable land governance, investment-driven solutions, and inclusive policies to foster stability, economic growth, and social equity.

The Land Portal has been following the news about USAID’s shutdown with much sadness and concern. During its 60-plus years of existence, the agency has acted on many fronts of international development, funding and managing thousands of initiatives to ensure good health, education, food security, women’s empowerment and, not least, good land governance in many countries of the Global South. 

On January 23, 2025, the Land Portal Foundation and Mekong Region Land Governance (MRLG) convened a webinar to explore the evolving landscape of agricultural investments in the Mekong region. Experts from various sectors joined to discuss the impact of industrial crops, smallholder farmer integration into transnational value chains, and the resulting economic, environmental, and social transformations.

Banner Image Credits: Photo by Ashwini Chaudhary(Monty) on Unsplash | Free to use under the Unsplash License

Land administration has historically focused on economic growth and formalization – now it must evolve to address climate imperatives.

Dear Friends and Colleagues:

As we approach the end of another remarkable year, I want to express my heartfelt gratitude for the collective effort that fuels the Land Portal. Your engagement, insights, and contributions make the Land Portal a trusted source of land information, and your feedback inspires us to improve as a convening space and platform for the global land community.

One glance at the shape of Itilla reveals that the person who determined the community’s oblong borders, was unaware of the realities of forest-dwelling communities in the Amazon. The Itilla reservation is an unusual 45 kilometers long and two kilometers wide. The territory looks more like a city block than the collective territory of a community in the Amazon.

Observers marked 2023 as a “make-or-break” year for voluntary carbon markets and a key “inflection point” for their role in addressing climate change and global deforestation. Proponents highlight that forest carbon projects channel much-needed funds towards forest protection and are pivotal to climate change mitigation. However, critics emphasize that carbon deals set incentives for over-crediting. Moreover, carbon offsetting allows the biggest emitters to simply outsource their climate mitigation efforts with potentially adverse impacts for affected communities.