Secure and Equitable Land Rights in the Post-2015 Agenda

The ongoing global conversation to define the Post-2015 Sustainable Development Agenda is a historic opportunity to end poverty and improve the livelihoods of the poorest and most marginalised women and men in the world. 

Governments have already made strong recommendations through the July 2014 Outcome Document of the UN Open Working Group (OWG).

As organizations working on food security, natural resources management and poverty eradication, we strongly encourage them to keep the profile of land and natural resources high in the document to be endorsed in September 2015. Secure and equitable land rights, particularly for those living in poverty and using and managing ecosystems, are an essential element of an Agenda that has the ambition to be people-centred and planet-sensitive.

We recall the international consensus governments have already reached on this subject, particularly with the 2012 Voluntary Guidelines on Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests, agreed by 193 countries. We embrace and are guided by the principle of leaving no one behind, as recently stressed by the UN Secretary General’s report “The Road to Dignity by 2030”.