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Tenure rights are crucial to the livelihoods of people as they define who can use which natural resources, for how long, and under which conditions. Tenure of natural resources is also essential for environmental sustainability and increased resilience and for enabling farmers to access other services. As the world population continues to grow and climate change reduces the availability of natural resources, increasing conflicts over land, and land deterioration are negatively affecting rural livelihoods on an unprecedented scale. In particular, women often have much weaker tenure rights than men, and they suffer discrimination by social customs, as well as by [...]

This technical guide for addressing gender equality in Sustainable Soil Management (SSM) is designed to provide an easily accessible and understandable reference on how to apply the Voluntary Guidelines on Sustainable Soil Management (VGSSM) for building healthy soils, while ensuring gender equality and women’s empowerment in all aspects of SSM. It is intended for use by a wide audience, including policymakers, public institutions and development partners, as well as by rural communities, farmers’ organizations, women and youth groups, and agricultural advisory services involved in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of soil management policies and programmes. The guide may also be [...]

Mobility is a vital strategy employed by pastoralists to capitalize on the scarce availability of resources in variable environments, making pastoralism economically feasible and environmentally sustainable. Through mobility, pastoralists can produce animal-sourced products that provide food and income security to populations in the world’s rangelands. Such a practice also provides a range of benefits to the environment while fostering the capacity to adapt to changing social and natural environments. With a few exceptions, policies have largely not kept up with new scholarship and development discourse that acknowledges the importance of mobility to pastoralism. There is a lag in and resistance to [...]

In line with the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure (VGGT), public and private investments globally are increasingly recognising responsible land governance as a determinant for the success and sustainability of their achievements. Investment managers understand that preventing and mitigating tenure related issues is a necessary step to achieve their objectives. While a wide range of tools, community-based participatory approaches, and technologies are available to help clarify, protect and secure tenure rights, navigating this landscape requires expertise which is often not available to investment projects. This guide provides readers with a basic understanding of the functional linkages between [...]

Produced jointly by the secretariats of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), with contributions from multiple stakeholders, this technical guide addresses the integration of the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries, and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (VGGT) within the implementation of the UNCCD and Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN), thus opening a new chapter in ongoing efforts to combat desertification, land degradation, and drought. The guide outlines the practical applications of the VGGT – an internationally recognized framework on the [...]

Many countries in Western Europe have a long tradition of applying land banking as part of the integrated toolbox of land management instruments. As with land consolidation, the traditional purpose of land banking has been to support agriculture and rural development by reducing land fragmentation and facilitating the enlargement of farms. In Western Europe, the objectives of land banking have developed over the last decades, and today, in several countries, the instrument is applied in a multi-purpose approach together with land consolidation. In most countries, land banking shares the objectives of land consolidation, which in addition to continued agricultural development, [...]

Seven years into the 2030 Agenda, there is an urgent need to understand where the world stands in eliminating hunger and food insecurity, as well as in ensuring sustainable agriculture. FAO's new report, “Tracking progress on food and agriculture-related SDG indicators”, offers analysis and trends on indicators across eight SDGs (1, 2, 5, 6, 10, 12, 14 and 15), highlighting areas of progress and areas where further effort is needed.Available in digital format, this year’s edition also discusses selected indicators for which FAO is a contributing agency and/or have key implications for food and agriculture across these Goals. These additional [...]

This technical guide is a product of the fruitful collaboration between FAO and UINL (MoU signed in 2016) which led to illustrate that the preventive administration of justice and notaries, as independent public legal officers, can play a key role in achieving the VGGT recommendations.By exercising their function responsibly and implementing best practices, practitioners in the preventive administration of justice can make a considerable contribution to improving the living conditions of citizens worldwide, to achieving sustainable livelihoods, housing security, rural development and environmental protection for the benefit of all citizens. The guide advocates for responsible governance of tenure through the [...]

The brochure provides data disaggregated by sex on various issues under the following topics: Small family farms and women's decision-making roles in agriculture Secure rights over land Employment, work and time use in agricultural contexts Access to digitalization and financial services Food security It also identifies some of the areas in the rural and agricultural contexts where there is only a partial understanding of the reality due to the lack of sex‑disaggregated data and gender-relevant statistics.

Los efectos de la crisis generada por la pandemia del coronavirus siguen evolucionando y golpeando con fuerza a nuestras sociedades. En el caso de América Latina y El Caribe (ALC), la tenencia de la tierra se encuentra en el corazón de su desarrollo; este tema como ningún otro ha provocado guerras, desplazamientos, conflictos sociales, corrupción, hambre y pobreza. Particularmente, la extrema desigualdad en el acceso y control de la tierra es uno de los grandes problemas sin resolver en ALC; es al mismo tiempo causa y consecuencia de estructuras sociales enormemente polarizadas que han alimentado y siguen alimentando las crisis políticas [...]