Anyone working in the field of land tenure and land governance will be aware of the existence of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests (VGGTs). Similarly, many will know that 2022 is the ten-year anniversary of their endorsement. 

There have already been various online forums to mark this occasion and consider the impacts of the VGGT, with a further high-level event planned on 6th-7th October this year in Rome. 

This data story aims to scrutinise some of these impacts. It does so by highlighting the available data on how the VGGTs have been used, how associated project work incorporates the guidelines, and whether implementation has resulted in tangible change in the security of land tenure for communities around the world. 

It is as much an investigation of the data that does not exist as that which does, highlighting the difficulty of measuring the impact of so broad a set of guidelines with many points of application. Yet such work is necessary if we are to weigh up the legacy of the VGGTs and propose concrete steps to move forward into the coming years.

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