Secure land rights are essential for improving the livelihoods of the poor and, more broadly, for economic development. In many emerging economies however, land remains a largely unprotected asset, one that lacks documented tenure and property rights.
A group of major donors – including DFID, GIZ, IFAD and the World Bank – jointly published a policy brief to inform the Sustainable Development Goals that will replace MDGs by 2015. In the paper, the organizations argue for a dual approach to land rights, that addresses tenure and property right targets under at least two goals. Land issues should be linked to poverty eradication, food security and gender equity.
The paper outlines how land issues could be addressed to serve as basis for SDG achievement:
A dual land and property rights target as proposed in the HLP report would be a very good outcome for the post-2015 negotiations—once under a goal to eradicate extreme poverty and once under a goal to achieve gender equality.
This target would allow the world to focus on protecting the rights of the most vulnerable people in the world in its efforts to achieve sustainable economic development and overcome poverty.
Alternatively, consideration could be given to a dual land and property rights target — once under a goal to eradicate hunger and undernutrition, and once under a goal to achieve gender equality.
This scenario would support secure land and property rights for people who are undernourished, food insecure or at risk of being food insecure. It acknowledged the centrality of responsible governance of tenure of land and other natural resources for global, national and individual food security, while protecting the focus on women.
Baselines for targets should take account of national contexts
which can be very different, in particular in the case of land.
Indicators to measure targets should be
• SMART
(specific, measurable, attainable/achievable, realistic, and time-bound)•
Allow for broad participation of all relevant stakeholders
• Be harmonised to allow global aggregation
• Sex-disaggregated to ascertain progress for women
• Build on existing systems, taking into consideration existing international accountabilitymechanisms and monitoring processes, such as by the Committee on World Food Securityon the implementation of the VGGT.At the same time, what needs to be known to measure progress in a meaningful way and tolearn lessons should not be compromised through an agreement to just measure what isalready available and how it is already being measured.
Indicators should be selected in such a way that they allow decision makers at local, national and international levels to be accountable — especially vis-a-vis the needs and interests of vulnerable and marginalized groups.
