WEDNESDAY 19 Feb 2025 (13:30 - 15:00 CET)
Land data is a powerful tool to address the Arab region's pressing challenges in managing land, ranging from climate change impacts to social inequalities and ongoing conflicts. However, significant gaps in land data, exacerbated by closed data systems, limit equitable access to information, hinder informed decision-making and widen developmental gaps, with the significant displacement of people within the region, specifically marginalized groups and IDPs.
To overcome these barriers, this session will examine the model of Data Collaboratives (and their respective tools) as one approach to monitoring land use, securing land rights, and ensuring accountability. It will explore collaborative data efforts rather than isolated initiatives to address the challenges of poor land and data governance in the Arab region. The EC Data Partnership is one such example of a Data Collaborative. It brings together a broad range of partners, including the International Land Coalition (ILC), Land Portal, Prindex, and Land Matrix who share land data and expertise to support informed decision-making on land governance at multiple levels.
Tools such as the SOLIndex, Land Matrix, Prindex, Landex and LandMark offer insights into multiple dimensions of land issues. The collaboration among these initiatives broadens the focus from data transparency for its own sake, to actionable data that can fill data gaps and promote equity, accountability, and resilience.
The session during the Arab Land Conference aims to promote actions and showcase opportunities for stakeholders in the Arab region to engage with data collaboratives and use the tools to help foster collaborative data ecosystems for resilient and inclusive land governance systems.
Speakers
- Dina Naguib, Arab states consulting coordinator for Data and land governance, Land Portal Foundation
- Shahd Almukhtar, ILC EMENA region Coordinator, International Land Coalition
- Eva Hershaw, Lead, Global Data and Land Monitoring, International Land Coalition
Organizers
Land Portal is an interdisciplinary team of experts committed to improving land governance through open-access data and cross-sectoral collaboration. All of their efforts are in support of the mission to INFORM people, OPEN critical data and information, and DEBATE perspectives on land. The Land Portal seeks to improve the documentation, mapping and monitoring of land governance issues, democratise the information ecosystem and strengthen flows of land governance data, from all perspectives and all levels and promote, inform and enrich the global debate on land issues. https://landportal.org/
The International Land Coalition is a global alliance of civil society and intergovernmental organisations working together to put people at the centre of land governance. The shared goal of ILC's over 200 members is to realise land governance for and with people at country level, responding to the needs and protecting the rights of women, men and communities who live on and from the land. ILC promotes secure and equitable access to and control over land for poor women and men through advocacy, dialogue, knowledge sharing and capacity building. https://www.landcoalition.org/en/