Global Advocacy
The world’s most cross-cutting issue deserves a global stage.
Secure land rights live at the center of global development and are essential to solving many of the world’s most pressing, interconnected challenges. Elevating the status of land rights as a global priority provides decision-makers with additional incentives, political will, and financial resources to take action toward securing land rights for all.
Landesa helps elevate the importance of land rights on the global agenda and grow a stronger, better connected network of land rights champions. By collaborating with other advocates and movement leaders, we can collectively move decision-makers toward adopting and effectively implementing inclusive and gender-equitable land laws, policies, and practices, at scale.
Our work
Sustainable Development Goals
In 2015, under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), UN member nations committed to achieving secure land rights for all in order to eradicate poverty, eliminate hunger, and ensure gender equality globally by 2030. Landesa was an instrumental player in the successful inclusion of land rights in the SDGs—co-leading a global coalition toward this goal.
Three SDG targets and three SDG indicators explicitly refer to secure land rights. The explicit inclusion of land rights under this global framework is transformative—elevating the profile of land rights as a foundational and cross-cutting development tool, mandating governments to take action; emphasizing the need to secure rights in an inclusive way, and creating a global database on land rights.
Landesa now supports the implementation and tracking of these commitments.
Human Rights
When there’s broad global consensus on strong international and regional standards for land, it translates to the national and local level. That’s why Landesa works to build strong rule of law at all scales.
Landesa has been a key player in the global momentum around human rights and land, providing legal and policy support to the United Nations (UN) and human rights treaty monitoring bodies . We engage in strategic advocacy alongside local partners and parallel movements for the rights of farmers, Indigenous Peoples, women, and more.
Women’s Economic Empowerment
Agency to make financial decisions and access to resources are essential for full participation in an economy. Land rights are fundamental to this participation, and can be leveraged for increased income and food availability, access to public and private services including finance, and investment in sustainable land uses. Despite making up nearly one half of the agricultural workforce, women face outsized barriers and discrimination when it comes to secure access to land , hindering their full economic potential.
When women gain secure land rights, they are more likely to reinvest in their families and communities and better protect the planet, creating a ripple effect of economic and social benefits. Landesa advocates for these rights as part of the Coalition for Women’s Economic Empowerment and Equality, ensuring that international and bilateral policies prioritize women’s access to land as a cornerstone of gender equality and economic progress.
