This Topic Guide covers: the trends in and drivers of large-scale land acquisition, and the associated costs, risks and benefits; the provision of and access to more accurate data on large-scale land acquisitions, and key international and regional initiatives to provide guidelines to enhance security of tenure and promote good quality investment; land reform issues such as land tenure regularisation and land administration systems; and land issues in the context of fragile states, and conflict and post-conflict situations.

Efficient land governance has long been recognized as a major driver of sustainable and equitable
development. Carried out effectively, it can enable us to address critical challenges such as those of climate
change, urbanization, gender equality, and food security. But the technical complexity of land administration,
together with institutional and political hurdles, often made the governance of land weak and ineffective,
thereby reinforcing deep-seated inequalities and creating inertia, instead of contributing to growth and

The Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (FAO, 2012 – referred to in this guide as ‘the Guidelines’) were unanimously adopted by the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) in 2012, with subsequent broad international recognition and support. Their strength rests on the unique inclusive and participatory process through which they were developed.

Fertile soils are an essential building block for human existence on Earth. The degradation of soils and land, in this regard, poses significant challenges for the well-being and food security of all the people around the world. Moreover, soils provide not only food, fiber, and many types of biomass we use, but also a wide

“Land matters” – more than ever! Can land be dealt with like other resources or – in terms of an economic perspective– forms of capital. Or does it attract particular meanings, sentiments, interests, acquisition strategies or social relations?

The importance of land manifests in various components of the everyday lives of people insocieties: cultural heritage, livelihood, the environment, economy, and community, among manyothers. Land is a factor of development. It is the most influential determinant of developmentbecause women, youths, and men (and households) depend on it for their livelihoods and formaintaining their living conditions in urban, peri-urban, and rural areas.

A call to action: 20 interventions that will matter. The report’s Call to Action identifies 20 points where interventions can create transformative and accelerated progress towards multiple goals and targets in the coming decade. These targeted actions are based on the recent scientific literature analysing the deeper systemic interconnections that identify synergies and trade-offs between individual goals and targets. Decisions based on science. Science must play a major role in advancing sustainable development.

The report’s findings suggest that policies and programmes of governments and the development partners could include a stronger focus on the development of peri-urban areas and smaller cities and towns. The rapid pace of change in peri-urban areas throws into relief any underlying issues in land tenure arrangements, land administration/planning and governance, such as overlapping mandates, conflicts in tenure systems, weak land administration/planning capacity and wider political economy issues that can block positive reforms.

Land markets are evolving in response to increasing population pressure in Africa.
High population pressure leads to land use intensification on very small farms.
Population growth in densely populated rural areas leads to increasing rural–urban youth migration.
Tenure security enhancing land reforms enhance investments and sustainable land use intensification.
Pro-poor development strategies should target the strengthening of land governance.

We cannot live without healthy land and soil. It is on land that we produce most of our food and we build our homes. For all species — animals and plants living on land or water — land is vital. Soil — one of the essential components of land — is a very complex and often undervalued element, teeming with life. Unfortunately, the way we currently use land and soil in Europe and in the world is not sustainable. This has significant impacts on life on land.

The Regional Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services for Europe and Central Asia produced by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) provides a critical analysis of the state of knowledge regarding the importance, status, and trends of biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people.

In Europe and Central Asia, FAO has 53 member countries today, and provides technical support in 18 countries in the Western Balkans, Trans Caucasus, Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Most of these 18 countries have farm structures dominated by smallholders and family farms or dualistic farm structures with many small farms and few large corporate farms (FAO, 2018).Land fragmentation and small farm sizes are a fundamental structural problem resulting in low productivity and competitiveness in the globalized economy (Di Falco et al.