Despite the fact that land supports the world’s food systems and community well-being, land continues to be unequally distributed, poorly governed, and insecure for billions of people. While 50-65 percent of the world’s land is occupied and used by Indigenous Peoples and communities, only an estimated 10 percent of the world’s land is legally recognized as belonging to them, with another 8 percent designated by governments for them.

Under the umbrella of the Land Dialogues series, the first webinar of this year’s series “Leading the Way : How Indigenous Youth Combat Climate Change Through Land Rights” took place on April 11th, 2024. The webinar drew in a little over 200 participants and featured young  Indigenous  and local community leaders from around the world. The series is organized by a consortium of organizations, including the Land Portal Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the Tenure Facility and this particular webinar was organized by organization YILAA and TINTA.  

Challenges with regards to scaling is not unique to the land sector. Working in the context of agriculture for development, CGIAR and Wageningen University developed the Scaling Readiness approach.  This approach response to the fact that the pressure to demonstrate fast and visible results and impact at scale, has sometimes resulted in unreasonable and unrealistic expectations, and in fact stimulated simplistic and non-sustainable scaling approaches.

Chad is at the verge of an emerging land tenure crisis. As observed in many countries in Africa, formal and customary tenure systems overlap. Customary tenure systems, that generally prevail in rural areas, differ from region to region, with each its own needs and practices. Land conflicts are abundant, caused by degradation and transformation of land surfaces caused by climate change, as well as land investments by domestic investors with disputed legitimacy.

As observed in many countries, women’s access to land in Burundi is hampered by  customary practices. ZOA, VNG and MiPAREC are scaling up a gender-sensitive approach to strengthening women’s rights to land. Experiences from the past prove that sensitization and awareness raising are for a meaningful and successful outcome for women. But there are also many challenges and pitfalls when it comes to working on a topic as women’s land rights.

« ‘Je prie Dieu qu’il ait partage et communion entre nous les femmes, que nous parlions d’une seule voix, pour se faire entendre par les autorités, qu’ils nous écoutent et nous soutiennent dans nos initiatives, à vaincre la faim et avoir abondement à manger’ Marthe Ladem, productrice rurale Logone orientale ( voir histoire de vie ‘Avec la femme rurale pour un Tchad sans faim&

Land has profound meaning to all people. It represents ‘home’ and cultural values, political power and participation in decision making processes; it can provide services for living such as food production and clean water and shelter and it can be used as an economic asset for income generation, as collateral for credit and as a means of holding savings for the future. Though women contribute to almost half of the world’s agricultural production, a mere 15% of these women have legal rights to the land that they work on.

By Allan Cain, Development Workshop Angola

* This article was originally published as part of the online discussion on customary law in Southern Africa

Interview with Christiana Ellie, M&E officer in Land for Life Initiative

1) Can you tell us a bit more about the Land for Life Consortium- Sierra Leone?

Land for Life initiative Sierra Leone, is an endeavour of five legally established  civil society organizations that are working together as a consortium to roll out the initiative in  five districts of the country. These organizations have their own specific objectives around land governance.

The  4th India Land and Development Conference, set to start next week, invites a wide variety of individuals and institutions to engage in thought-provoking and interdisciplinary conversations and analyses.  More specifically, the Conference's theme Institutions, Innovations and Informations in Land Governance invites us all to think about the role that information sharing can play in helping to ensure effective land governance.