USAID and Colombia’s Superintendence of Notary and Registry (SNR) continue recovering important land records by digitizing files and building the entity’s capacity to serve a healthy land market.

In 2016, when USAID tried to support the Colombian government with the digitization of rural land and property files, this initiative encountered resistance.

Good land administration helps to secure property tenures. It also protects the land rights of people (including individuals, communities, and the state) through good governance principles and practices. Therefore, probing land administration practices—whether in developed or developing countries—is essential to developing tools or methods for securing natural resource rights for people, especially for the youth and women. A broad knowledge gap exists on the land/water/forest–people–health–wellbeing nexus of natural resource administration research and practice.

In the six months since the coronavirus began its global spread, more than 15 million people have been diagnosed with COVID-19 and more than 600,000 have perished. Governments around the world have instituted lockdowns and shut down businesses. Entire industries have been devastated, notably travel, hospitality, and entertainment in the formal sector, and day labor and street and market vendors in the informal sector. Overall, hundreds of millions of people worldwide have lost their livelihoods.