Result of Service

A United Nations expert says Ecuador has awarded concessions for energy projects on indigenous land without consulting local people

QUITO - Excluding indigenous Ecuadoreans from the country's development plans has made their rights "invisible", a U.N. expert said, citing a government push to approve oil and mining projects to extract resources from their territories.

Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, made the comments on Thursday at the end of an 11-day fact-finding mission in the country.

The promise of instant cash meant developers were able to tempt Maasai to sell their ancestral land, often far below market value

KAJIADO, Kenya - Five years after Naponi Taiko's husband died, his relatives chased her and the couple's two children off their parcel of land in southern Kenya.

Back then, Taiko was in her late teens. Today, aged 44 and with a further three children, she works in a bar in one of the rugged entertainment joints that dot Kajiado, a town about 50 kilometres (31 miles) south of the capital Nairobi.

Drones do not just map households faster, cheaper and accurately, but the maps provide a strong visual template of engagement for communities

The Government of Liberia (GoL) in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and development partners have expressed commitment to implementing two major land tenure regulations, which include the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance (VGGT) on the Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forest and the Land Rights Act (LRA) process.

The government and partners have henceforth, instituted the land tenure regulations to enhance food security, and to ensure land access for many of the citizens.

Indigenous communities in central Chiapas have been displaced due the presence of rival armed groups in their territories.

A territorial dispute between municipalities in Chiapas, southern Mexico, has displaced thousands of Indigenous people who now remain in precarious situations. In this attack, two people suffered gun shot wounds when an armed group prevented them from returning to their crops, a human rights organization reported.

Global survey of perceptions of property rights could help provide solutions to key development challenges

The first official results from an international survey of how secure people feel in their homes and on their land were published today, revealing that in the initial 15 countries surveyed, 25% of citizens are concerned that their property could be taken away from them. This aligns with earlier findings from a pilot study in three countries.

NAIROBI (Landscape News) – Land tenure rights are widely recognized as being central to advancing sustainable development goals, but they are only one part of the picture.

As it happens, tenure rights to trees are entangled with, but different from, those to land, meaning both must be acknowledged to incentivize stewardship of the landscape by local communities, said delegates at the Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) in Nairobi.

Today, the High Court of Australia will begin hearing the most significant case concerning Indigenous land rights since the Mabo and Wik native title cases in the 1990s.

Over the past ten years, the number of violent conflicts around the world has increased significantly, having a negative impact on food production and availability.

Since 2000, almost half of all civil conflicts around the world have taken place in Africa, where land issues have played a significant role in 90 percent of the 30 interstate conflicts.  

Competition over land and water can trigger conflict, threatening the welfare and the food security of the most vulnerable. 

Can digital technologies play a role in “closing the gap” in the 21st century?

Our research is focused on designing digital technologies that operate outside existing power structures. That means Indigenous leaders taking charge of the process – and consulting Indigenous end-users throughout.

Deadline:  13/07/2018

The Land and GLTN Unit, located within the Urban Legislation, Land and Governance (ULLG) Branch of UN-Habitat, has the objective to develop, test and disseminate pro-poor and gender responsive tools and approaches regarding land, innovative residential tenures, affordable land management/administration systems, and land related regulatory/legal frameworks and tools.