Despite recent advancements in land reforms across Africa, women and girls are still hugely disadvantaged, according to a recent meeting of experts. The 2020 Africa Land Forum (ALC), which took place online between 15 and 17 September, brought together 500 participants to explore the theme ‘Delivering on the African Union Agenda 2063 by Promoting People-Centered Land Governance in Africa’.

Authorities in Koh Kong province are searching for the individuals who set up border posts on nearly 200ha of protected forest, with officials and activists claiming that powerful tycoons had hired local people to encroach on the land.

On Sothearith, governor of Koh Kong’s Thma Bang district, told The Post on November 22 that after protected forest land was allocated to people who had lived in the district’s Russey Chrum commune for many years, some people came in to claim the conservation areas with the intent to sell the land to businessmen.

The importance of a sound land administration system (LAS) cannot be over-emphasised.

This article seeks to examine the current state of the land administration system across all land-use categories in Zimbabwe, a general overview of the land administration challenges, with the aim of providing a policy proposition of how the land system can better be administered.

Communities being able to participate on an equal basis in land governance is key to food security and inclusive development. How can securing land rights pave the way for responsible investments and what can we learn from experiences with the palm oil industry? To answer these questions we turn to West Africa where two activists are fighting for their communities’ right to land. ‘If we want to move forward, we need to share the wealth that the land brings.’

The first ever global dataset that quantifies tenure insecurity puts Botswana in a category of countries with the highest land and property insecurity.In terms of the Prindex, a methodology for measuring tenure security for land and property around the globe, more than 30 percent of Botswana’s adults (18+ years of age) feel insecure about their land or property rights. In terms of the Prindex, which was developed by a London think tank, more than 30 percent represents extremely high levels of insecurity.

The Dutch LAND-at-scale program was launched in March last year and since then, two rounds for land intervention ideas have been released. The program seeks ideas that contribute to improving land governance in developing countries, and that ultimately support better food and nutrition security, economic development, peace and stability in these countries. At this moment, projects for 16 countries are actively being formulated in close collaboration with embassies and other in country stakeholders.

In the six months since the coronavirus began its global spread, more than 15 million people have been diagnosed with COVID-19 and more than 600,000 have perished. Governments around the world have instituted lockdowns and shut down businesses. Entire industries have been devastated, notably travel, hospitality, and entertainment in the formal sector, and day labor and street and market vendors in the informal sector. Overall, hundreds of millions of people worldwide have lost their livelihoods.

Mbabane: The Human Rights and Governance Consortium under CANGO has called for the amendment of the laws governing the land tenure system to confer security of land ownership and protect communities from unlawful evictions.

This follows the recent evictions which took place at Mangwaneni in Mbabane on August 24, 2020.

The Food and Agricultural Organization(FAO), in collaboration with Friends of the Nation (FoN), has held a two-day capacity building workshop for journalists to improve on the reporting of food security issues.

The workshop was to enhance the media coverage of the management and protection of fish landing and processing sites in the face of intense pressures for land-use changes along the coast of Ghana.

We should recognise that people in informal settlements have the same right to share the city with the same dignity and equality as other residents. Without the active participation of informal settlement residents in upgrading projects, any upgrading plans proposed are destined to flop. Post the pandemic, we (Namibian planning practitioners, donors and private sector) should look towards the inclusion of people in informal settlements communities in planning and upgrading of the informal settlements. 

‘WOLTS Team Perspectives’ is a new series of blogs launched in February 2020 by the global WOLTS team. In this series, field team members share their views about the impacts of the project’s action-research on gender, land and mining among pastoralist communities in Tanzania and Mongolia.