Effective land governance systems are key to economic growth, protecting nature, rural livelihoods, conflict prevention, and women’s rights.

Yet land governance in many developing countries is weak, with large amounts of unregistered land and disputed ownership rights, resulting in little protection for the homes and livelihoods of the poorest and most vulnerable:

• Only 30% of the global population has legally registered rights to their land and homes;
• Women constitute less than 20% of the world’s landholders;
• Indigenous Peoples and local communities hold 65% of the world’s total land area, but their legal rights extend to only 10% of that land.

The Land Facility, launched April 2024, is a global programme from the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office of the United Kingdom to advance effective and sustainable national land governance reforms and administration systems.

The Land Facility will provide technical support to partner governments, tackling complex land governance problems and furthering wider developmental objectives. Core priorities for the programme are:

• Commitment: building political support for land governance reforms
• Capacity: increase government capacity to plan and implement the reforms required to develop robust land policies, legislation and administration systems
• Coordination: strengthening coordination within government, and between government and wider development partners in focus countries

Through these interventions, the Land Facility aims to support governments develop robust and transparent land governance systems and increase formal recognition and protection of rural, urban and forest tenure rights, including in tropical forest countries.

Tetra Tech and Land Equity International lead delivery of the Land Facility, in partnership with Global Land Alliance, Landesa, Mokoro, The Policy Practice, Terra Firma, TMP, and Planet Partnerships.

The Land Facility will be delivered through partnerships with governments and wider stakeholders to design and implement demand-driven projects informed by political economy analysis. These projects will cover urban, rural or forest land in focus regions of Sub-Saharan Africa, South-East Asia and Latin America. The Land Facility is part of FCDO’s Global Land Governance Programme and the UK Government’s Centre of Expertise for Green and Inclusive Growth.

As the Land Facility’s learning partner, the independent Decision Support Unit (LF-DSU) facilitates knowledge production and exchange within and beyond the programme to support adaptive decision making for land governance.  

The LF-DSU aims to:

• Support programme decision making that is evidence-informed, outcome-oriented and value-for-money driven across all Land Facility engagement areas,
• Facilitate programme learning and support the programme to take action to adapt in response
• Engage with a wide range of global stakeholders across research, policy and practice in land governance reform to foster learning exchange and share insights from the Land Facility

The DSU is led by Abt Global Britain, in collaboration with Cadmus (UK), and the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF) (Indonesia) as well as an extended team of experts and resource partners. The partnership combines cutting-edge approaches to political economy analysis, monitoring, evaluation, research and learning (MERL), adaptive management and communications and influencing.

Please contact Robin Bloch, Team Leader, or Emily Hayter, Deputy Team Leader, for questions about the DSU.

The programme is now in early implementation phase and runs to December 2030.

If you would like to learn more about the programme, contact Jolyne Sanjak, Team Leader, or Becca Smith, Senior Facility Manager.

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The Land Portal Foundation believes that access to information is crucial for achieving good land governance and securing land rights for landless and vulnerable people. Building an information ecosystem for land governance that supports informed decision and policy-making at national and international levels is its mission. Land Portal will play a central role in the online communication of Land Facility programme learning and global community engagement. Please check this page for future updates.