In this interview, Prof. Felix Ngana talks about the creation of the Training and Research Unit (UFR) on Land Governance and Local Development (GFDL) at the University of Bangui in the Central African Republic (CAR). Following the establishment of a Bachelor's degree program, plans to extend this training to the Master's and PhD levels are already underway. These efforts are timely, as the country has embarked on a decentralization process to elect mayors and governors to head municipal and regional councils, respectively.
This data story reflects on the complexities of measuring the impact of land governance projects and summarize some of the best practices on impact evaluation from the well-known guidelines on the topic.
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.
Senegal has the particularity of being the westernmost point of the African continent, which is located at the tip of Almadies in Dakar, the country's capital. With an area of 196,722 km2 , Senegal is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Mauritania to the north and Guinea and Guinea-Bissau to the south. The Gambia, a country located on either side of the river bearing the same name, forms an enclave within Senegal. The relief of Senegal is generally flat and low, with an average altitude of less than 50 metres over three quarters of the territory.
In Cameroon, many rural communities are unaware of their rights, in a context where they are increasingly challenged by large-scale land-based investments. Sandrine Kouba from RELUFA explains how setting up a radio programme has helped to inform indigenous communities about their rights and enable them to feel better prepared to face investors.
In Ethiopia, pastoralist communities and other communal land users face significant threats due to government policies which favour large-scale land investments and erode communal land rights. Here, Daniel Behailu and Nathaniah Jacobs discuss the importance of developing laws that recognise and respect communal land rights in Ethiopia, potential legal solutions, and why change will require community engagement and social legitimacy to work.
International Women’s Day today challenges us to ‘break the bias’. This is key when it comes to the climate crisis as women are more vulnerable to climate shocks, yet less able to build resilience due to the cultural and legal biases that frustrate their agency over land and resources. Subjective data offers us ways to spot these biases and target ways of breaking them.
More than a dozen land-related indicators are housed over five SDG goals, with data maintained by different custodian agencies. The Land Portal re-launched the SDG Land Tracker to help land stakeholders monitor developments and discussion.
A recent paper explores a case study of a palm oil project in East Kalimantan, Indonesia, in which competing claims of recognition and land rights have led to conflict between transmigrants and indigenous Kutai people. The study offers evidence to understand the neglected perspective – and recognition – of migrants in situations of environmental injustice.
The second day of the Forum built upon discussions around customary land tenure in the Mekong region, but with a focus upon private sector investment practices, particularly concerning agriculture and the potential impact on smallholder farmers, the rural poor, and the environment.
The task of opening a large event is never easy. Within a short space of time, you need to set out a clear agenda, freshening the perspective of the viewer, and then clear the decks for discussion to move forwards rather than retread old ground. Following some introductory greetings from Jean-François Cuénod of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Micah Ingalls (Team Leader MRLG) took up the challenge.