The rural poor who have weak or no land tenure rights are among the most vulnerable to the direct effects of climate change, both because insecure land tenure reduces the incentives and capacities to take good care of the land to mitigate /adapt to the effects of climate change, and because without secure tenure rights, disasters can easily lead to land loss and migration, also through document loss and land grabbing. Yet, public understanding of the links between climate change, disasters, and land tenure is still very limited, leading to poor prevention and wrong response, and those without land or near landlessness are the most marginalized and voiceless, and are often left out of climate change discussions, such as the fast-approaching COP28. 

On the request of the GFAR member Asian NGO Coalition for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ANGOC), a number of members in the GFAR network (including CSOs, farmers’ associations, indigenous people’s associations and international networks), facilitated by GFAR, identified a common priority in the issue of extreme vulnerability of landless or near landless rural poor to climate change led disasters. They also agreed on a common approach to address the issue, based on increased awareness, better documentation, and inclusion of affected communities in decision making.

The Action will start in Asia Pacific, coordinated by the Asian NGO Coalition for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ANGOC) in partnership with the Land Portal Foundation and in network with ANGOC’s members, under the aegis of the Asia-Pacific Association of Agricultural Research Institutions (APAARI).    Extension of the Action to other regions is foreseen based on demand, drawing from the experience of the first phase, and GFAR, ANGOC and Land Portal will support the scaling out.

The expected outcomes are better informed and more inclusively designed climate disaster prevention and resilience policies that factor in land tenure issues; to create greater awareness on the importance of land tenure rights in the climate change discourse among policy makers and the general public; to clarify and stress the role of rural communities in documenting the issue and participating in policy making; to make all data from the action open and visible and to share good practices drawn from the Action for replication.

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