As we gather to discuss one of the most crucial topics for Africa’s future—strategic land use planning—the importance of youth land rights cannot be overstated. Based on my reflections and experiences that I prepared for the Fourth International Conference on Youth and Land Governance in Africa (CIGOFA4), I’d like to highlight why securing land rights for young Africans is essential for our continent’s progress.

The webinar Inclusive Land Governance and Fit-for-Purpose Land Administration: Whose Purpose?, which took place on 19 September, 2024, explored how a people-centered and holistic approach can transform Fit-for-Purpose Land Administration (FFPLA) and ensure that land administration truly serves the needs of communities.  The webinar, which was moderated by Imke Greven of the LAND-at-Scale Program Advisor at the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) gathered over 275 people. 

On September 23, 2024, a powerful hybrid event titled "From Commitment to Action: Enabling Direct Funding for Indigenous Peoples in Multilateral Climate and Biodiversity Initiatives" was hosted at the Ford Foundation headquarters in New York City as part of Climate Week. The event gathered Indigenous leaders, activists, multilateral fund representatives, and climate finance experts to address a critical question: Can multilateral mechanisms, with their sprawling bureaucracy, meet the urgent need for direct, fit-for-purpose funding for Indigenous Peoples on the frontlines of climate and biodiversity challenges?

Current global developments in the land and human rights spheres show a progressive shift to focus on previously ‘unpopular’ subjects like corruption. The most recent milestone in this regard was the adoption of a General Comment on land and economic, social, and cultural rights (E/C.12/GC/26) by the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (UN CESCR) in December 2022.

The objective of this blog is to highlight the importance of inclusive land governance in fostering sustainable development, emphasizing how fair land administration practices, recognition and protection of land rights can significantly contribute to the realization of the SDGs.

The webinar “Pathways to Customary Land & Forest Rights in the Mekong” took place on July 2nd, 2024. This was the second webinar in the series ‘State of Land in the Mekong region’ which aims to highlight the evolving environment of land governance in this dynamic region, including Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Vietnam. The webinar attracted 240 participants and featured experts from the Mekong region. The webinar was organized by the Land Portal Foundation and the Mekong Region Land Governance and drew on findings from research and activities conducted by the Mekong Region Land Governance (MRLG) Project and its partners on the recognition and formalization of customary tenure rights across the Mekong region.

Speaking truth to power is an art, but increasingly a lost art. This goes as much for academia as for the rest of the world. Indeed and unfortunately, much of academia reflects the world in which it functions and often makes the challenge of deepening social justice harder rather than smaller. To put it bluntly, much of academia has resorted to instrumental and naïve beliefs in innovation, technology and efficiency (which dominate the natural sciences) or (as in much of the social-economic sciences) increasingly arcane niche debates that too often revolve around virtue-signalling, methodological-theoretical wizardry or apolitical pragmatism. What we seem to have lost to a good degree – though to be sure: it was never a dominant endeavour and at the same time it has never been absent either – is the art of speaking truth to power.

After a four-year hiatus, the World Bank Land Conference took place again in Washington, D.C. this May, convening one thousand government, civil society, and land stakeholders in person and thousands more online. The theme of the 2024 conference was "Securing Land Tenure and Access for Climate Action," an exciting and meaningful frame for discussing an issue near to our hearts – open access to land information. 

 

The Land Portal organized a panel on building a robust and open land information infrastructure for tenure security and climate action in Africa, moderated by Romy Sato. The session featured an outstanding panel of speakers from the public and private sectors representing perspectives on land data from Malawi, Madagascar, Mozambique, Namibia, Senegal, and Uganda.

Rapid response mechanisms (RRMs) are a new, proactive legal approach designed to provide legal and technical support to communities facing nascent conflicts related to land-based investments. RRMs provide preventative rather than reactive legal help the moment a conflict arises or community members’ rights are threatened, rather than trying to reverse rights violations once they have already occurred. 

After a four-year hiatus, the World Bank Land Conference took place again in Washington, D.C. this May, convening one thousand government, civil society, and land stakeholders in person and thousands more online. The theme of the 2024 conference was "Securing Land Tenure and Access for Climate Action," an exciting and meaningful frame for discussing an issue near to our hearts – open access to land information. 

The Land Portal Foundation, in partnership with Transparency International, hosted the webinar titled "Breaking New Ground: Insights and Stories on the Impact of Land Corruption on Discriminated Groups in Africa." The webinar brought together a panel of distinguished experts to delve into the challenges and complexities of corruption intertwined with discrimination in land rights and governance. This session provided crucial insights through detailed case studies and expert analyses, offering pathways towards more equitable land management practices.

Under the umbrella of the Land Dialogues series, the first webinar of this year’s series “Leading the Way : How Indigenous Youth Combat Climate Change Through Land Rights” took place on April 11th, 2024. The webinar drew in a little over 200 participants and featured young  Indigenous  and local community leaders from around the world. The series is organized by a consortium of organizations, including the Land Portal Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the Tenure Facility and this particular webinar was organized by organization YILAA and TINTA.