Wetlands are among the most important natural resources in Uganda. They protect the country’s water resources, and are important for sustaining agricultural productivity and rural livelihoods, particularly in areas with low or unpredictable rainfall, land scarcity, or where surrounding land has low potential for agriculture.
Scaling is at the heart of both the name as well as the strategy of LAND-at-scale (LAS). Scaling and scaling potential are key in the way the program was designed and is reflected in the three pillars chosen to realize the aim of the program.
The Global Land Tool Network (GLTN) has a lot of experience across the world in implementing tenure security projects. Like no other, they understand the threat insecurity of tenure has on people’s livelihoods and food security and have made it their mission to secure tenure rights for all. LAND-at-scale is working with GLTN in Uganda to design a scalable approach towards improved tenure security and sustainable land use for men, women and youth on customary land. Learn more about their experiences and approach in this interview with Simon-Peter Mwesigye from the GLTN Secretariat.
Your Excellency, Madam Minister, Distinguished guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,
There is an immense pressure on land in Uganda. The country has a rapidly growing population and is host to the world’s third largest refugee population. Particularly poor people struggle to get access to healthy food. Agriculture practices need to become more efficient and focused on the domestic market. The Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (EKN) in Uganda works to improve food security in selected areas in the country. Among several food security projects, the EKN works with the LAND-at-scale program to improve land governance.
The COVID-19 crisis exacerbated land governance challenges, including addressing failures in land governance systems, a lack of transparency, systemic corruption, and lack of accessibility to data. It undermines development progress on global food security and has driven people into poverty, while governments take license to develop indigenous and community lands and thus fuel the climate crisis.
This session zoomed in on the local situation and challenges faced by grassroots communities and women in some low-Income countries. It provided an overview of support provided by Civil Society organizations (and governments) facilitating communities, women in particular, to step up the efforts to strengthen their land rights and to generate resilience in face of the climate and COVID-19 challenges they are facing.
More secure land tenure provides much better opportunities to face climate and COVID-19 challenges by investing in high biodiversity local food & income systems.
Securing women’s land rights remains high in the news and in the development agenda in recent months. A quick search on Land Portal shows since March this year more than 250 resources related to land & gender, including news articles, blogs and publications.
Whether and how climate change drives conflict has driven considerable debate over the past decade. Yet understandings of climate-conflict remain general, and in many respects, unsettled.
Advancing women’s land rights is a priority for the international development agenda. Yet, there is no consensus on which rights should be monitored and reported. Three indicators of women’s property rights are widely used in the literature. Each captures a different aspect of women’s land rights, but a recent paper explores the extent to which these different rights are held by the same person, using data from six African countries.
Por: Sara Moraca
