Land is a finite resource, and access to it is essential for the livelihoods of individuals and communities. To ensure that access to land is secure and equitable for all, the United Nations has set the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 1.4.2, which measures individuals' land tenure security, and SDG 5.a.1, which measures tenure security over agricultural land from a gender perspective.

1. Can you tell us how you became so engaged in the Land Portal? Why were you so committed to the development of Land Portal over the years?

I have worked on land rights for two and a half decades, so to be engaged with the Land Portal was a natural and organic progression, especially given the increasing important role of knowledge and information sharing in defending and ensuring people’s rights to land.

Many rural communities in Tanzania share similar challenges from mining companies and investors. I have seen first-hand how men and women gender and land champions can help.

Under the umbrella of theLand Dialogues series, the first webinar of this year’s series “Taking Data Back: Women’s Sovereignty Over Land Data” took place on March 30th, 2023. The webinar drew in a little over 220 participants and featured panelists from Indigenous women leaders to programme officers.  The series is organized by a consortium of organizations, including the Land Portal Foundation, the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the Tenure Facility.  

Celebrating Women's International Day, we take a tour to Sierra Leone and put our lens on specific factors that affect women's perception of being insecured in their lands. This data story is based on fresh data from partner organisations Green Scenery, Resource Equity and the University of Groningen.

The theme for this year’s International Women’s Day is “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality”.  The day aims to celebrate women and girls who are championing the advancement of transformative technology and digital education.

On 15 December 2022 the LAND-at-scale Knowledge Management team hosted a webinar Land tenure security revisited: Do we know what we need to know? that presented the preliminary findings of a study on tenure security authored by Guus van Westen, and Jaap Zevenbergen. The presentation of the study was followed by breakout sessions on tenure security and its relationship to women's land rights, the role of the state, land conflicts, and economic development facilitated by land experts and panelists who reported back to the plenary on the discussions with their respective reflections on the findings of the study.

Multiple studies indicate that secure rights to land and other property can protect women from experiencing domestic violence by strengthening their position within their families or by providing women with a stronger ability to exit abusive relationships.

In September 2022, Sierra Leone enacted unprecedented new laws related to land, climate and sustainable development – the Customary Land Rights Act 2022 and the National Land Commission Act 2022. The webinar focused on the Customary Land Rights Act 2022, and its transformative power to support communities in protecting their land rights and pursue sustainable development. 

Achieving the twin goals of protecting the planet and improving humanity’s wellbeing relies on women having the agency and space to co-govern the natural resources they - and their families - depend on for their livelihoods. Reflecting on COP27’s Gender Day, we look at how better understanding women’s access to, use, and control of land, forests and natural resources in Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLC) could be utilised to support climate action.