This blog post from Transparency International and the Land Portal is a small preview of the discussion we're co-organizing at the World Bank Land Conference next month. The focus is on moving from awareness to action with strategies to secure land tenure and access, while scaling up initiatives, investments, and policy reforms for climate change mitigation and adaptation - including tools to monitor transparency and corruption. 

The Third Arab Land Conference, held in Rabat, Morocco from 18-20 February 2025 opened an avenue of possibilities for improving policies and practices to govern land in the Arab world. From the launch of several groundbreaking initiatives to empowering women and youth, and fostering data transparency and academic excellence, the event showcased commitments and collaborative work shaping the future of land governance in the region.

On International Women’s Day, we reflect on the intersection of land rights and gender equity through a compilation of resources featured on the Land Portal’s platform. Women’s access to and control over land is fundamental to achieving sustainable development, economic empowerment, and social justice. However, despite international commitments, structural barriers continue to hinder women’s full participation in land governance.

On March 5, 2025, the FAO and the Global Land Alliance launched an important study titled Collective Tenure Rights and Climate Action in sub-Saharan Africa. This study consolidates extensive research on how collective land tenure arrangements impact forest conditions, biodiversity, and the livelihoods of Indigenous peoples and local communities across the

Development organizations that, in principle, support open data should focus more on releasing project-generated data for others to analyze and re-use. Producing written reports in the middle or end of project cycles is good practice, but not enough to maximize the knowledge captured from projects or for independent audits by third parties. This applies particularly to projects with land governance objectives, as governments – the usual custodians of land-related data – are only minimally opening these datasets up to the public.

The Land Portal has been following the news about USAID’s shutdown with much sadness and concern. During its 60-plus years of existence, the agency has acted on many fronts of international development, funding and managing thousands of initiatives to ensure good health, education, food security, women’s empowerment and, not least, good land governance in many countries of the Global South. 

Recognizing Indigenous lands is important to achieving forest and biodiversity targets and mitigation goals. This is directly acknowledged in initiatives like the Global Biodiversity Framework’s 30x30 Target, Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD+) and Net Zero by 2050.

However, the actions necessary to achieve these targets can sometimes result in pressure  and infringement on Indigenous and local land tenure systems that are already insecure due to lack of formal recognition and communities’ weak participation in decision-making related to climate initiatives. These pressures are experienced differently by women and men because of social, economic and political dynamics that influence land tenure and community governance systems. Failure to account for gender when implementing climate initiatives can risk eroding the traditional land entitlements of women and trigger additional negative impacts.