Our food system doesn’t work for everyone.

In sub-Saharan Africa, less than 13 percent of women aged 20-49 have rights to land, according to research by the World Bank. Therefore, securing their land rights remains a very crucial matter to boost their socio-economic empowerment. 

By Sean Johnson, land administration specialist at COWI, Swaziland

* This piece was originally published as part of the online discussion on customary law in Southern Africa

By Monica de Souza Louw, Land and Accountability Research Centre (LARC), University of Cape Town

* This piece was originally published as part of the online discussion on customary law in Southern Africa

By Allan Cain, Development Workshop Angola

* This article was originally published as part of the online discussion on customary law in Southern Africa

Mining in the context of climate of climate change brings new challenges to the industry and exacerbates already existing sustainability problems. This Datastory highlights some of these tensions while pointing towards emerging best practice. The findings are based on document analysis and semi-structure structured interviews with corporate representatives from the 37 largest mining companies in the world.

The Land Rights Law (LRL), enacted on the 23rd of August 2018, was an impressive feat. It recognizes the land rights of all Liberians, especially rural communities who have historically been subject to mere user rights on their ancestral lands. The LRL protects the rights of communities to their claimed customary areas as their lawful property – “with or without deed”. This provision places an estimated 70% or more of the country under customary ownership.

Our food systems are in urgent need of transformation, as humanity faces one of our biggest challenges yet; feeding a future population of 10 billion people with safe and nutritious food while keeping a healthy planet. Our food system has the power to tip the scales and transform the future of our planet and humankind.

There is an underlying tension in the land rights movement that is rarely addressed head on, which is the perception that securing women’s land rights threatens community land rights. Community land rights are typically held by indigenous people, small-scale and subsistence farmers, pastoralists, herders and many other groups who are directly dependent on land for their livelihoods but whose land tenure is often the most precarious.

When the Land Portal was founded in 2014, we were part of conferences that spent vast sums of money bringing hundreds of people together to discuss land-related subjects. Yet the powerful speeches that were made, the insightful presentations and the moments of epiphany were largely getting stuck in the conference venue. 

After three days of intense discussion covering the breadth of land governance issues focusing on the theme of Land, Crisis and Resilience, Dr. Joanny Bélair, Postdoctoral researcher from Utrecht University and LANDac, had the unique opportunity to Chair the closing Session of the LANDac Conference 2021. Closing session panelists were Dr.

In the second PhD session of the LANDac Conference 2021, three PhD researchers presented their work in progress. We learned about slums in Abuja, Nigeria, about forest rights in India, and about the relation between inequalities in soil fertility, gender, and access to subsidies. Each presentation was discussed by an expert from the LANDac network.

Key Takeaways