By Yuliya Panfil, Jon Unruh and Michael Cholod

Seven months have passed since Russia invaded Ukraine, displacing more than 13 million people—one-third of the country’s population—and leveling entire towns. 

And yet, despite all odds, Ukraine is turning the tide against its more powerful neighbor. Ukrainian forces have staged a rapid counter-offensive, liberating thousands of square miles of territory that displaced Ukrainians are beginning to return to.

When more than 1,200 land rights experts converge on the World Bank’s Washington, DC headquarters today for the 18th Annual Land and Poverty Conference, participants from government, civil society groups, private sector and donor agencies will focus on how they can use data and other evidence to reform land policies, identify strategies for expansion and find ways to monitor progress.

By Yuta Masuda and Brian E. Robinson

I’m sitting in a Mongolian yurt, listening to and trying to emulate Bataa’s* songs about love for the grasslands and the wide, treeless plains of the Mongolian Plateau. Our host sings with consuming passion. I might have brushed his enthusiasm off as a show two weeks ago. But after living and working in these grasslands, the feeling of freedom that comes from unobstructed, far-off distant horizon is infectious.