The mission of Global Land Alliance is to enable the sustainable prosperity of people and places by advancing learning and practice of land governance to achieve healthy relationships with land, life and natural resources, emphasizing local and Indigenous knowledge.
Land governance concerns the rules, processes and structures through which decisions are made about access to land and its use, the manner in which the decisions are implemented and enforced, and the way that competing interests in land are managed. (Source: FAO)
Land tenure is the relationship, whether legally or customarily defined, among people, as individuals or groups, with respect to land. (For convenience, “land” is used here to include other natural resources such as water and trees.) Land tenure is an institution, i.e., rules invented by societies to regulate behavior. Rules of tenure define how property rights to land are to be allocated within societies. (Source: FAO)
Security of tenure is the certainty that a person’s rights to land will be recognized by others and protected in cases of specific challenges. People with insecure tenure face the risk that their rights to land will be threatened by competing claims, and even lost as a result of eviction. Without security of tenure, households are significantly impaired in their ability to secure sufficient food and to enjoy sustainable rural livelihoods. Security of tenure cannot be measured directly and, to a large extent, it is what people perceive it to be. The attributes of security of tenure may change from context to context. (Source: FAO)
Learn more about our research on global perceptions of tenure security here:
Land administration is the way in which the rules of land tenure are applied and made operational. Land administration, whether formal or informal, comprises an extensive range of systems and processes to administer:
land rights: the allocation of rights in land; the delimitation of boundaries of parcels for which the rights are allocated; the transfer from one party to another through sale, lease, loan, gift or inheritance; and the adjudication of doubts and disputes regarding rights and parcel boundaries.
land-use regulation: land-use planning and enforcement and the adjudication of land use conflicts.
land valuation and taxation: the gathering of revenues through forms of land valuation and taxation, and the adjudication of land valuation and taxation disputes.(Source: FAO)
Today Malcolm Childress, GLA’s Executive Director and Audace Kubwimana, Africa Regional Coordinator of the International Land Coalition (ILC), signed a Memorandum of Understanding which makes official the organizations’ longstanding mutual effort to support and advocate for advancing gaps in land data and dialogues in the Sub-Saharan Africa.
Securing tenure rights for local communities is one of the most important ways we can be thinking about climate action around the world. We believe no one knows their land better than communities who live in it, and when good governance mechanisms are bolstering those rights, it enables the best conditions for good stewardship.
Last week, Prindex Co-Director Anna Locke attended the India Land and Development Conference 2023: Land - People Relations: Diversity and Transitions, cosponsored by Global Land Alliance. She reflects on the conference, people she met, and the future of land governance in India. Special thanks to the Center for Land Governance and Pranab Choudhury for convening an important space for dialogue and collaboration.
Global Land Alliance acknowledges that we, as individuals and as an organization, benefit from the traditional land of the Nacotchtank and the Piscataway Conoy People working in what is now known as Washington D.C. As a core value of our mission, we believe that the Indigenous knowledge is key to advancing rights to land and resources.
In the summer of 2023, Global Land Alliance’s Brazilian team and Brazilian partners Torsiano Consulting set out to conceptualize how the Brazilian government could approach the designation of public lands in the Amazon. Our team analyzed the efforts currently underway by the Brazilian government how they are improving and accelerating public land allocation process, which will have dual-benefits for climate outcomes and rights for Indigenous People and forest-dwelling communities in the Amazon. The following article is a summary of the legal and operational analysis.
This week Global Land Alliance and Prindex formally signed on as global partners of the Stand for Her Land (S4HL). We look forward to collaborating with, supporting coalition partners from around the work to advance the vision of S4HL: to bridge the gap between law and practice for Women Land Rights.
Last week, Andrea Teran and Christina Kuntz from GLA traveled to Bolivia to meet with representatives of the Bolivian National Institute for Agrarian Reform (INRA), Inter-American Development Bank, Fundación de la Cordillera (FUNDECOR), and other consultants for GLA's work regarding environmental and social safeguards within the land formalization process, land administration process, and institutional capacity building in Bolivia.
Global Land Alliance has been selected by the European Commission (EC) to receive a €2.1 million grant to advance Prindex. It is part of an overall effort by the EC to advance land governance with the International Land Coalition (ILC), and underscores the importance of data on perceptions of land and property rights. This grant will further develop the global study which asks people how likely they think it is that they will lose their land or property against their will in the next 5 years.
On April 20th, 2023, Dominican Republican newspaper outlet Listin Diario published an article entitled “Datos para ordenar el territorio”. The article discusses new Dominican Law No. 368-22 on Territorial Planning, Land Use and Human Settlements and obstacles that the government entities in-country have in implementation. One particular factor, the article notes, is the absence of up-to-date geographic and territorial information by the municipal governments, as highlighted by a GLA and IDB study.
We are pleased to announce that Global Land Alliance has joined the PLACE Community as the first PLACE Founding Member..
Earlier this month, Global Land Alliance’s Executive Director submitted an open letter, joining a collective voice promoting Brazilian State support for CLT initiatives, and influence representatives to take supportive measures to affordable housing and long-term community-building, development and/or guarantee of rights.
How do we better ensure that women are not left worse off after Land Tenure formalization campaigns? From February 21-25th, a Global Land Alliance team comprised of Laura Restrepo and Maribel Arguello visited the small villages of Tierra Grata and Chafurry in the Puerto Lleras municipality, which is in the larger Meta department of Colombia.
In Colombia, as part of the Land for Prosperity program: (1) GLA has developed a protocol for identifying and referring cases of Gender Based Violence in the context of land formalization activities that take place as part of LFP's Massive Parcel Sweep […]
Global Land Alliance (GLA) participated in the international conference organized by Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Rural Development, Water and Forests of the Kingdom of Morocco. The conference took place on February 22 and 23, 2023 in Rabat and was focused on the findings and recommendations of an in-depth report about the issues of land division.
The Government of Kenya, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), International Land Coalition (ILC) Africa and Global Land Alliance will host the the first-ever Regional Land Data and Digitalization Conference will bring together key actors in Africa and beyond to share good practices in data technologies and digitalization for the land sector
Global Land Alliance’s November 2022 edition of our Parcel Post contains articles entitled: Treaties, Indigenous Land And Resource Rights In The Great Lakes And Enbridge’s Line 5 Pipeline: Interview With Whitney Gravelle by Christen Corcoran; Treaties, Indigenous Land And Resource Rights In The Great Lakes And Enbridge’s Line 5 Pipeline: Interview With Aurora Conley by Christen Corcoran; Land Tenure Insecurity And Climate Adaptation: Socio-Environmental Realities In Colombia And Implications For Integrated Environmental Rights And Participatory Policy by Brianna Castro and Christina Kuntz; People-Land Relationships On The Path To Sustainable Food Security by Malcolm Childress, Pranab Choudhury, and Jolyne Sanjak
The 2022 United National Climate Change Conference (UNCCC) COP will be the 27th convening of this group and will take place from November 6th-18th. The stakes are higher than ever as a series of recent scientific reports has shown that global climate change affecting nature, people’s lives and infrastructure everywhere. Its dangerous and pervasive impacts are increasingly evident in every region of our world. These impacts are hindering efforts to meet basic human needs and they threaten sustainable development across the globe. (IPCC 6trh report 2022) The same scientific consensus shows a growing recognition of the role of land, land tenure security and forests in climate mitigation, adaptation and resiliency goals.
Fast, transparent and just compensation of losses and restitution of rights for land and housing property in Ukraine require actions now. Incorporating several critical amendments and adopting the Law on compensation of losses is the first of such steps. Equally important are swift rebuilding of government infrastructure on the de-occupied territories and clarifying the responsibilities for managements of abandoned and destroyed property. The legitimate right holders need to be informed about how to secure their property rights and how to report any losses. These and several other steps discussed below will help to rebuild Ukraine and prevent undue tension in all sectors of Ukrainian society.
Ovejas is a small, rural town in the Sucre department of Colombia, which is situated on the northern Caribbean coast. The majority of the land in this area has historically been used for agricultural purposes and, furthermore, has experienced decades of armed conflict, illicit crop cultivation, tenure insecurity, and forced displacement. Today, Ovejas and other rural areas in the region are moving towards a post-conflict context via various initiatives including the promotion of licit agribusiness models in addition to the formalization of land parcels.
In the recently published Land Tenure Security and Sustainable Development, edited by Margaret B. Holland, Yuta J. Masuda, and Brian E. Robinson, a diverse range of contributing authors, including Malcolm Childress, Moustapha Diop and Christina Kuntz, provide a unique disciplinary, sectoral and topical perspective
The work to shut down Line 5 to protect the Great Lakes and the climate continues despite spreading misinformation about the need for the pipeline. On July 28 join communities and stakeholders for this special virtual event, The Latest on Line 5: Key Pathways to Protect the Great Lakes from an Oil Spill Disaster.
In this new episode of the LandUP! podcast, we unpack the linkages between land tenure and land degradation. We spoke to Professor of Geography Dr. Jon Unruh, Country Program Manager Kader Baba and Researcher Anne Hennings about the emerging nexus between land tenure and Land Degradation Neutrality.
GLA’s Victor Endo- “Planificando la vivienda del futuro” del Programa de intercambio de conocimiento Vivienda Sostenible Para Todos, del Banco Mundial.
Last week, the International Land Coalition (ILC) hosted its 9th Global Land Forum in Jordan - the first large in-person meeting of the land community for three years. The main focus of the Forum was on the climate crisis and the role of strong land rights in adapting to and mitigating climate change. However, it also focused on those issues traditionally championed by those working on land rights: gender equality and social inclusion, peace-building, food security, tenure security, land governance and the continued plight of those defending land rights and the environment.
Mike Wiggins Jr, Bad River CEO and Tribal chair said of the removal: “No amount of compensation is worth risking Wenji-Bimaadiziyaang- an Ojibwe word that literally means ‘From where we get life.’ It’s time to end the imminent threat the company is presenting to our people, our rivers, and gichi gami (Lake Superior). It’s not only an infringement of our sovereignty, but a burden felt by our people having to engage in the perpetual chase for the next pipeline rupture. It’s time to stop the flow of oil immediately.”
In the past few weeks, a number of water protectors have seen criminal cases dropped by prosecutors in so-called Northern Minnesota after alleged actions taken to stop the Line 3 pipeline in defense of the water, the climate, and the treaty rights of the Anishinaabeg people. Violating Anishinaabe treaty territories in Minnesota, the new stretch of Line 3 was approved without full consent or proper impact studies, threatening safe water sources for millions. It carries the carbon equivalent of 50 coal plants. More than 68,000 Minnesotans testified against this plan.
Join Prindex's event at the Global Land Forum, read thoughts from Prindex Co-Directors Anna Locke and Malcolm Childress on what they hope the Forum will achieve, and explore our work around the event's key themes.
Marriage informality is a widespread phenomenon, and emerging evidence points to the risk that land rights formalization efforts may systematically exclude rural women who live with partners in informal marriages. Formalization programs that fail to recognize and include these “invisible” wives risk leaving them worse off than they were before, by permanently assigning rights to the land on which they live and work solely to male partners.
Global Land Alliance is raising awareness among national governments, multilateral and bilateral development agencies, civil society and researchers about the risks to rural women’s land rights related to marriage informality in the context of land tenure formalization campaigns.
Email us to learn how to donate to Global Land Alliance for the data collection, research, and raising awareness of this topic. Global Land Alliance is a 501c3 charitable organization. If you have questions about this or other research projects, email here.
Prindex, a joint initiative of the Global Land Alliance and Overseas Development Institute, is the first truly global, comparable measure of ‘perception of land tenure security’. We survey perceptions of a representative sample of citizens, not only heads of household. Prindex has collected data from over 140 countries. United States Government has accepted Prindex as the data source for reporting on SDG 1.4.2. Learn more at prindex.net
Global Land Alliance’s Land Administration Program builds upon this extensive and long-term global experience to provide, through our staff, associated consultants and Global Alliance partners, widely considered global practice leaders, innovative and progressive technical assistance and advisory services in the conceptualization, design, technical and operational oversight of land administration and land tenure projects.
Community -Based Resource Management supports communities and individuals in identifying and managing natural resources to ensure long-term sustainability and self determination, especially of forest ecosystems. Global Land Alliance works on studies to advance collective land tenure security, rights and recognition. Securing forest and community tenure and tenure of fragile ecosystems lays the foundation for effective programs across sectors.
The Program on Community Land Access & Security seeks to address domestic and global threats to social equality that structurally targets access of land of low income and vulnerable communities. This program builds upon localized development of community-centered land strategies to foster new ways of addressing: eviction, land grabbing, urbanization, restorative justice, and policies targeting displaced- marginalized and discriminated groups.
Dr. John Bruce/ Read Full Article
Since our founding in 2014, Global Land Alliance has recognized that well-defined and well-managed land and resource rights are fundamental to the prosperity of people and places, with a focus supporting a broad range of poverty reduction and sustainability goals. Join our alliance to help reach that vision.
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