Chapter

People’s Data and Partnerships

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ILC played a role in these changes. Continue reading the report to find out how.

ILC is democratising data

Making sustainable decisions means having access to high-quality information. That applies whether at the global, intergovernmental level, or in the local community. Whether it is knowing who owns or controls land, or how to tackle climate change, only through data can people be confident that they are doing the right thing. However, too often those who live on and from the land are excluded from decisions about their land by those in power.

In the hands of land-users and citizens, data can be a powerful tool that has the potential of shifting those power imbalances — as our Uneven Ground report demonstrates. Across the globe, ILC members are collecting and managing ‘people-centred’ data, according to their own priorities. ILC is assisting in the production of ‘Shadow Reports’ which help hold governments accountable to their own commitments, especially the SDGs.

By doing so, they are able to show the complex realities of land governance on the ground, provide information they need to advocate for their rights, while holding governments accountable to the promises they make

With over 250 member and over 500 partner organisations coming together in 77 national and thematic platforms, ILC supports these initiatives by providing tools and training to generate and use people-centred data. These initiatives are participatory, consultative and respond to the data demands of members.

For more on our Uneven Ground report, which analyses data harvested from all around the globe to reveal the stark and growing inequalities in land, see the Land Inequality section.

Notable highlights

  • LANDex global index was developed to help democratise data and help keep governments and businesses accountable
  • The Nepalese government expressed their interest in further developing LANDex as a robust tool for data collection
  • SDG Land Momentum Group exposed that only seven out of 47 countries reported on SDG land-related targets at the 2020 High Level Political Forum
  • Land Collaborative initiated the first learning cycle on private sector engagement

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Launched in 2019, LANDex is putting people at the centre of data

Initiated in all NES countries, the full index has presently been used in countries as diverse as Colombia, Senegal, Peru, Chile, Mongolia, Bangladesh and South Africa.

LANDex is a global land index that puts people at the centre of land data, democratising land monitoring and building a data ecosystem where all voices can be heard, built in consultation with members and strategic partners of ILC. Based on common indicators and methodologies, LANDex gives priority to people-centred data, giving a platform to the individuals and communities often absent in official numbers.

Ten additional countries have carried out partial implementation: Cambodia, Grenada, India, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Philippines, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago.

A joint defender data dataset (10C) is being generated in five six countries: Colombia, Guatemala, Kenya, Mexico and the Philippines . While six countries are using LANDex data to monitor the SDGs through parallel reports: Argentina, Ecuador, Honduras, Nepal , Peru and Senegal.

Besides land governance monitoring at a national level, LANDex is also more widely used for SDG and VGGT monitoring, SDG parallel reports and country assessments, and to build a merged dataset on attacks on land and environmental defenders.

Case Study

LANDex in Nepal: interview with Mr Hem Raj Regmi, Deputy Director General of the Central Bureau of Statistics

“The statistical system in Nepal is very decentralised,” says Mr Hem Raj Regmi, Deputy Director of Nepal’s Central Bureau of Statistics. “Due to limited resources and finance we are not always able to produce all the data that are required by the government, by civil society and international organisations. This is particularly the case with meeting our obligations to report the SDGs (UN Sustainable Development Goals). So we have formed partnerships with government ministries, the Central Bank, the UN, and international NGOs wherever we could, to source specific data.”

ILC’s land index tool, LANDex, has been a key component in that strategy, helping the Central Bureau of Statistics identify where they have weak or insufficient data. “When it comes to land rights and how this affects stakeholders — whether male, female, poor people, or landless — this is very limited data for us. How many are landless? How many have less than one acre, how many farmers are raising livestock, poultry etc? These are the sort of questions LANDex can answer.”

“LANDex is different to other agencies,” explains Mr Regmi. “The Ministries of Health or Land Management, for example, produce data from official statistics, sourced from their own information management system. Universities and academic researchers tend to produce small scale, qualitative research. LANDex is a mixed model approach: they do quantitative and qualitative research. This mixed model brings data from the community and official national statistics, alongside data from groups like the Landless Peoples’ Association, combining them in a meaningful way to help inform policy.”

LANDex is already having an impact on how land is used and managed in Nepal (see the Human Rights section for more). And Mr Regmi sees more potential for the data LANDex provides creating more transformational change.

“Land is a very important issue here in Nepal,” he says. “It is the main source of income, and how people consider themselves secure. Recently the ministry has completed the digitisation of land records, which can tell us how much land is owned by women, for example. The LANDex partners are also advocating land rights and that gives us possibilities to distribute the land and make a proper distribution.”

LANDex is now working with the Central Bureau of Statistics on the rollout of the 2021 Nepal Agriculture Census, delayed because of COVID. This 10-yearly assessment collects information on land, crops, forestry and livestock, and supplies essential information about tenure, land use, and climatic events. All of this will go on to inform long-term policy decisions about economic, social and infrastructure investment.

LANDex in Senegal: measuring progress toward the SDGs

In Senegal, LANDex was used by NES Senegal to collate and analyse data in measuring the country’s progress towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals. While the report card showed that in many areas, more needed to be done, this was one of the first times that land and land governance have been included in global monitoring frameworks. The LANDex data confirms important advancements towards Agenda 2030 in Senegal, noting relatively high levels of perceived tenure security and gains in the legal and institutional frameworks providing for secure land tenure. Women’s control over land in Senegal remains limited, as does their effective enjoyment of the laws that provide for their equal rights. State support for family farmers is deemed insufficient, affecting their ability to contribute to a resilient food system.

Access to land information is relatively good, but corruption in the land sector persists. Existing platforms for dialogue on land provide an important space for the achievement of the SDGs but could benefit from more meaningful participation from women and other target groups.

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As of today, indigenous and community land maps on LandMark cover 12.4% of the world’s land, out of an estimated 50% or more that is held by indigenous peoples and communities globally.

LandMark, of which ILC is a leading partner, is the first online, interactive global platform to provide maps and other critical information on lands that are collectively held and used by indigenous peoples and local communities.

LandMark is designed to make their land, territories, and claims visible. This subsequently protects their land rights and secures tenure over their lands.

It displays georeferenced information on collectively-held and used lands worldwide.

It provides several categories of data to show the land tenure situation, as well as potential pressures on indigenous peoples and communities lands, changes in land cover over time, and their contributions to protecting the environment.

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Securing land rights is the key to ending poverty and building peaceful and just societies, but it is clear that we cannot work in isolation. Over the past three years, ILC has made big strides in building strategic global partnerships to widen action on key areas in which we seek to make a difference.
Case Study

SDG Land Momentum Group

ILC is the secretariat to the SDG Land Momentum Group. This is a partnership of 13 international organisations that monitors progress made towards the land targets of the SDGs, and advocates for their effective implementation. The group has worked to ensure that land rights are in focus in the SDG accountability mechanisms. such as the HIgh Level Political Forum.

PROGRESS TOWARDS THE SDG LAND RIGHTS COMMITMENTS

In 2020 the group conducted research on the 2020 SDG reporting countries to examine to what extent countries report on the land targets.

This is a spin off from the work the group implemented to encourage both state and non-state parties to report on progress on the land targets based on a methodology developed by the group. It conducted a number of training programmes for both government and non-governmental organisations to encourage reporting.

Out of this training, four parallel national reports to measure progress have been compiled in 2020 (Argentina, Ecuador, Honduras, Peru) and an additional seven in 2021 (Guatemala, Mexico, Paraguay, Colombia, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Sierra Leone)

Land Collaborative

Member Story

“This cycle has enabled me now to actually come closer this negotiation context with private sector investments than ever before; also, what is notable is learning that the private sector is motivated by some factors and indicators that other actors, especially those in CSO, need to learn about” - Berns Komba Lebbie

Read Story

Land Collaborative is a partnership that brings together supporters of National Engagement Strategies. It brings together land governance change makers in a global community of practice that stimulates innovation and aspires to equip national coalitions with the tools, capacities and processes to drive real systems changes for people-centred land governance.

The partners - including Welthungerhilfe, FAO, and the Mekong Region Land Governance Program - together support over 40 national coalitions. Land Collaborative facilitates exchange and learning across these countries to equip national coalitions to be transformative.

Berns Komba Lebbie, National Coordinator of the Multi-Actor Partnership (MAP) Land for Life Sierra Leone, participated in Land Collaborative’s first learning cycle on private sector engagement for Responsible Agricultural Investment (RAI):

By the end of the learning cycle, which is facilitated by The Natural Resources Institute of Greenwich University, multi-stakeholder and multi-actor platforms in 12 countries (6 in Africa and 6 in Asia) were equipped to effectively engage with the private sector to promote Responsible Agricultural Investment.

ILC MEMBERS ARE DOING AMAZING WORK

HERE ARE SOME GOOD PRACTICES FROM THE LAST THREE YEARS

Community Awareness Meetings with Traditional leaders.jpg
ILC Learning Hub

#Africa #Land policy and multi-stakeholder dialogue #Legal assistance, legal empowerment and access to justice #1. Secure tenure rights #7. Inclusive decision-making #8. Transparent and accessible information #4. Equal Land Rights for Women #Use of media and communication #Network Vibrancy #Legal empowerment #Land rights #Malawi #Community Land Rights #Community empowerment #Multistakeholder processes #Media #Policies and laws #National partnerships

Florin Torba tours Albanian forests_ National Federation of Communal Forests and Pastures of Albania
ILC Learning Hub

#Europe, Middle East & North Africa #6. Locally managed ecosystems #Knowledge and information management #Land conflict resolution #Land policy and multi-stakeholder dialogue #1. Secure tenure rights #7. Inclusive decision-making #4. Equal Land Rights for Women #Research and training #Use of media and communication #Forestry #Conflict resolution #Albania #Community empowerment #Multistakeholder processes #Policies and laws #National partnerships #Family farming #TWA #NFCFPA

women farmers bangladesh
ILC Learning Hub

#Land conflict resolution #Advocacy & campaigning #1. Secure tenure rights #2. Strong small-scale farming systems #5. Secure territorial rights for indigenous peoples #7. Inclusive decision-making #9. Effective actions against land grabbing #10. Protection for land rights defenders #4. Equal Land Rights for Women #Research and training #Use of media and communication #Women's Land Rights #Asia #Indigenous peoples #Civil society #Capacity building #Advocacy #Bangladesh #Multistakeholder processes #Media #Women's Land Rights #ALRD #National partnerships #KAPAEENG #ARBAN #CDA

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