Advancing the Monitoring of Land Governance for Ensuring Impact on Poverty Reduction

Transcription

1 Advancing the Monitoring of Land Governance for Ensuring Impact on Poverty Reduction March 2009

2 Table of contents: 1. Introduction 2 2. Monitoring Land Governance 3 3. Indicators of secure access to land: the state of development 4 4. Is there a consensus on pro-poor land policy as a basis for collaboration on monitoring? 5 5. Gathering evidence for better land governance 6 6. The Land Reporting Initiative Lessons learnt from initial steps of LRI Expanding the LRI Inter-linkages between the LRI and other ILC programs 15 Annex 1: What data is being collected? 16 Annex 2: Consultative process on global collaboration for monitoring land rights through the ILC Land Reporting Initiative 18 This paper has been prepared by Annalisa Mauro, Timothy Bending and Mike Taylor ILC Secretariat for the initiative Land Governance in Support of the MDGs: Responding to New Challenges organised by World Bank Washington DC, March 9 and 10,

3 1. Introduction The International Land Coalition (ILC) is a network of organisations united by a shared vision that promoting secure and equitable access to and control over land for poor women and men reduces poverty and contributes to dignity and inclusion. Its members include United Nations and Bretton Woods organisations, research organisations and civil society organisations from around the world. It exists because of the conviction that, by coming together to debate, share knowledge and work together, these organisations can achieve more than the sum of their separate efforts. Today, there is a growing consensus on the cross-cutting contribution of resource rights to reducing poverty, achieving food security, resolving resource conflicts, providing incentives for sustainable resource management and as a contribution to democratic development. But in order for land policy reforms to contribute more fully to poverty reduction and sustainable development, they must be closely related to processes that empower poor men and women in decision-making processes. The ILC seeks to promote a pro-poor land agenda by facilitating global debate and advocacy; by creating space for civil society to engage in national-level dialogue on land issues and actively participate in the national democratic processes; by promoting research, monitoring and innovation, and the sharing and dissemination of knowledge within and beyond its network; by building the capacity of member organisations to fulfil these roles; and by building an evermore effective, globally representative and member-led coalition to make the case for pro-poor land policy and practice. This paper examines one core activity of the ILC that is foundational to many of the wider activities that ILC undertakes; monitoring secure access to land. It examines the ways in which monitoring access to land provides a basis for action by a variety of organisations within and beyond ILC s membership, and emphasises the diverse roles in monitoring land governance played by different stakeholders. It draws on the lessons learnt from the Land Reporting Initiative, started in 2004, and the subject of a workshop of members and partners in December 2008 to redefine and expand the initiative. 2

4 2. Monitoring Land Governance Land governance refers to formal and informal processes of allocating and securing rights to land, both within the state and outside of it 1. Land governance is thus related to norms of democratic governance, in which popular participation through civil society plays an essential role. Land governance is at its best a multi-stakeholder effort. Over the past decade there has been an increasing recognition by governments of the diverse ways in which land is used. As a result, some recent land policies and laws have been more accommodating of the often pluralistic nature of tenure systems. This change in mindset has in some countries been enabled by a shift towards the decentralisation of land governance, enabling land and natural resources rights to be defined at local levels. In many contexts, increasingly active civil society organisations working on land issues have created a stronger demand for different perspectives and priorities to be reflected in land policy formulation and implementation. The increasing democratisation of land tenure and management demands that a wider variety of interest groups are able to collect and access information on land governance which they can use to support their efforts (see Annex 1). The increasing multi-vocality of land tenure processes in many countries thus creates a need for increasing multistakeholder involvement in land monitoring. The collection and availability of land governance data is improving. Nonetheless, despite the changing context, data is at best patchy, and in many important areas largely absent. Land governance data can be categorised according to inputs, processes, outputs, outcomes, and impacts. These categories translate roughly into: laws and policies; administration and implementation processes; outputs such as land registries and rates of title possession; outcomes such as rates of landlessness and conflict; and impacts on factors such as poverty. These distinctions are important because while there is an increasing focus and effort directed at monitoring administration processes and outputs, there is a severe lack of available data on outcomes that would allow a better analysis of the impacts of land governance policies, and also on the particular outcomes for women, and for groups that do not access land through formal property systems. Overall, there is not only a need for land governance monitoring that is more comprehensive in terms of covering more countries, more comparably, but also in terms of covering all the key aspects of land governance. Particularly from civil society stakeholders, there is a demand for monitoring that is able to measure the impacts of land governance on poverty. It is at this level that perspectives on what constitutes good land governance may be most divergent. It is thus also at the impact level that there is a particular need to enable diverse groups to monitor according to factors that they consider important. 1 Adapted from UNDP Bureau of Development Policy Cross-Practice Initiative on Land Governance 3

5 3. Indicators of secure access to land: the state of development: While meaningful indicators have been suggested in most key areas, actual data collection and data availability is very sparse. Perhaps because of this there has been a tendency to focus on legal frameworks and the implementation of policy which are both relatively easy to measure. There is less attention to the ends actual patterns of access to land resources and levels of tenure security. Assessing these latter, however, would allow for the evaluation of policy efficacy, the impact on secure access to land of other factors, and the importance of land issues in attaining other key development goals. Inputs - Policy and legal frameworks: A range of indicators has been developed, particularly as regards the rights of women and other vulnerable groups. Such indicators are relatively easy to assess by drawing on expert opinion. Processes and outputs - Land administration: There has long been a focus on quantitative indicators on the outputs and costs-to-users of tenure formalisation processes, though less on other aspects on land administration. The Land Governance Assessment Framework that has been developed by the World Bank's Good Governance in Land Administration initiative, and that has been piloted in 2008, now provides rather detailed and comprehensive coverage of this area. Outcomes - Access to land for the poor: Access to land and landlessness are issues that have received little attention in indicator development. Land ownership concentration may in some cases be calculable from public data sources. Household survey methods, requiring government involvement, could be used to assess broader concepts of secure access to land. Outcomes - Tenure security: Putative indicators of tenure security tend in fact to be indicators of legal and administrative factors that may contribute to tenure security namely the means, not the end. Suggested indicators of tenure security in itself include the prevalence of disputes and evictions based on the records and assessments of CSOs. Another approach is to assess perception of security through household surveys considering the fact that tenure security is not necessary related to the formalisation of the land titles. Outcomes - Women's access to land: Indicators of the legal representation of women's rights have been proposed, while the use of disaggregated data to assess discrimination is commonly proposed for indicators of registration and titling coverage. Otherwise attention is sparse. Questionable is also the assumption that formal ownership data can represent women's real access and decision-making power. No indicators have been proposed for other key issues such as actual rates of women's inheritance of land. 4

6 4. Is there a consensus on pro-poor land policy as a basis for collaboration on monitoring? It is probably not controversial to suggest that there are key areas of emerging policy consensus on pro-poor land policy. There is very widespread agreement on such points as: The importance of recognizing multiple forms of tenure, including common property rights, customary rights and selective rights of access to natural resources. The importance of good governance considerations in land administration, particularly the minimization of corruption. The importance of access to information; making it not just formally available but accessible to the poor. The importance of the empowerment of the poor, including legal empowerment measures such as the provision of legal counselling and other access to justice considerations, or the use of alternative conflict resolution mechanisms. The importance of legal frameworks and administrative practices that are nondiscriminatory to women and other disadvantaged groups. The importance of an open national dialogue on land policy in which poor and marginalized groups are able to contribute through civil society. These emerging areas of consensus form a good basis for collaborative initiatives to monitor the progress of land administration and land reforms. 5

7 5. Gathering evidence for better land governance A large number of ILC member and partner organisations are actively involved in monitoring land issues. The roles that these monitoring activities play can be categorised as: i. gathering evidence for advocacy; ii. providing a basis for dialogue and information for democratic governance; iii. providing information for empowerment and coalition-building. Within these roles, monitoring can serve to show why land governance reform may be needed, to show what policy changes may be required, to characterise and evaluate processes of land governance administration and implementation, to measure policy outputs and to evaluate the effectiveness of these outputs in terms of outcomes on access to land resources and tenure security, and impacts on poverty, food security and sustainability. (i) Gathering evidence for advocacy Supporting advocacy is a key role for monitoring. Advocacy goals range from promoting compliance with international agreements to promoting policy changes at national and sub-national levels. UN-HABITAT's Urban Observatory system is designed to monitor the implementation of the Habitat Agenda, while FAO has supported a civil society advocacy group, Food First International Action Network (FIAN), to develop monitoring tools that CSOs can use for parallel reporting on the Voluntary Guidelines on the Right to Food. Monitoring is more advanced on more general human rights and governance norms, which of course have relevance for land governance, and particularly by international CSOs. Transparency International surveys on corruption, for example, include the land sector. A perhaps much greater role for monitoring is in support of advocacy at the national level. In this, civil society organisations predominate, among them many members of ILC. Very often the role of monitoring is to put the need for land governance reform on the national agenda. The Centro Peruano de Estudios Sociales (CEPES) is working to assess and raise awareness of the main drivers of land reconcentration in the present period: land markets, privatisation of cooperatives, creation of irrigated arable land, concessions for extractive industries, investments in biofuels and tourism. CEPES is developing a monitoring system based on normative, institutional, census, subjective and other indicators, including normative indicators relating to the protection of land rights within international agreements, constitutions and national laws. The National Land Rights Forum (NLRF) in Nepal, supported by ILC member Community Self-Reliance Centre, is able to generate information on the land rights situation through its organisational structures at the district and community levels. As a key element of participation in the movement, community-level groups conduct participatory analyses of land ownership structures and power relations in their communities and use this to inform their own strategic planning. The data produced is also collated at the district and national levels to inform strategic planning and advocacy. Civil society organisations also work to promote better standards of land administration. Kenya Land Alliance, for example, has monitored the mismanagement of public lands. Other organisations are focussed on evaluating the outputs and outcomes of land policy, such as in the 6

8 Philippines and Madagascar where CSOs are seeking to track independently the performance of the land reform programme. (ii) A basis for dialogue and information for democratic governance Monitoring is not only about generating evidence to back-up advocacy claims. It is also important as means of stimulating dialogue between sectors such as civil society, government and IGOs. It provides a constructive basis for dialogue. An example is Land Watch Asia, which has been formed by ILC civil society members in six countries: The Philippines, Nepal, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Cambodia and India. Land Watch Asia has taken the approach of producing coordinated country studies on national land policy and priority issues, linked by a regional level analysis that also draws on assessments of the policies of regional and bilateral bodies (Australia, China and Japan, Asian Development Bank, ASEAN and SAARC). These studies are proving an effective starting point for discussions; a way of opening space for dialogue between CSOs, government and intergovernmental institutions. The initiative has also been influential in opening up space for discussions with the Asian Development Bank, ASEAN and the World Bank in the region. Platforme SIF, a CSO alliance in Madagascar is, through the collection of primary information, seeking to influence the Programme National Foncier. Another example is Fundación Tierra in Bolivia which sees its role as providing accurate, evidencebased information on the land reform situation and process in the country, enabling informed debate and political participation, in a situation that is otherwise highly politically charged and affected by misinformation. Through their monitoring efforts, CSOs can be seen as feeding into civic education as part of processes of democratic (land) governance. Monitoring land governance partakes of the general process of democratic governance. This is never more the case than when monitoring is used to raise general public awareness and inform public participation in the political process. (iii) Information for empowerment and coalition-building One of the lessons from the recent ILC workshop on monitoring land issues was the diversity of roles that monitoring can play for different organisations. For civil society organisations, monitoring can be an important tool for empowering people who are affected by land issues, particularly when these people are themselves involved in the generation of evidence. In Nepal, monitoring is central to the building up of the Land Rights Movement as a grassroots-based organisation. Community groups play an active role in recording and analysing land-related issues within their communities, something that feeds directly into their own strategies for promoting change at the local level. The data generated is also collated at district and national levels (the National Land Rights Forum) to inform strategic planning at these levels. In providing a basis for discussions between organisations, monitoring can also play an important role in coalition-building, resulting in a sharing of information and informing debate about strategic priorities and the coordination of efforts. This has been a lesson learnt particularly from the experience of Land Watch Asia. Monitoring is also important, for IGOs, as a source of information influencing resource allocation. Such allocation systems could ideally be based on a standardised 7

9 global and objective system of land governance indicators. In the absence of the comprehensive data collection and data availability that would make such a system possible, organisations have had to develop their own systems. IFAD has developed a Performance-Based Allocation System 2 using expert assessment methods to produce assessments on a range of land governance criteria. The Millennium Challenge Corporation 3 has since incorporated IFAD's data into its own Land Rights and Access indicator. In summary, monitoring plays a critical role in promoting pro-poor land governance. It is critical in demonstrating the need for land governance reform and in putting land issues on national and international agendas. It also informs the development of appropriate policies, helps make governments accountable for the quality of administration services and the implementation of programmes, and enables the evaluation of policies and legal frameworks in terms of their effectiveness is providing tenure security and access to land for the poor, and their impacts in reducing poverty and improving food security and sustainability. In fact, when land governance is seen in the broader sense of how society governs the use of its land resources, monitoring can be seen as an essential component of the land governance process itself. It provides inputs for a governance process that is meaningfully inclusive

10 6. The Land Reporting Initiative of ILC As a global coalition, spanning from local grassroots organizations to United Nations agencies, international financial institutions and international organizations, ILC creates and benefits from unique opportunities to engage in dialogue on land issues. This engagement strengthens the ability of civil society voices to be heard on land issues at international, national and local levels. It creates opportunities for members with different access to political and economic power and differing views to engage together and discuss the role of land access security in the lives of poor men and women. These roles are enabled to a large degree by the assessment and monitoring of international, regional and national agreements, policies and laws that affect access of poor men and women to natural resources, especially land. The Land Reporting Initiative (LRI) is an ILC initiative that supports and builds on the work of member organisations in monitoring land issues and trends. It also seeks to facilitate collaboration between civil society and inter-governmental organisations to promote better monitoring of land issues for ensuring impact on poverty reduction. The central goal of the Land Reporting Initiative is to make sure that evidence is gathered on the land access and tenure security situations of poor and vulnerable groups, and to make sure that that evidence has an impact on policy and supports reforms. The objective of LRI is to; Strengthen advocacy at national, regional and global levels for pro-poor land governance reform by improved evidence-gathering on the exclusion of poor women and men by existing governance frameworks and practices, and the impacts of this exclusion on their livelihoods. The expected results of LRI are: (i) a stronger evidence base for advocacy which will have an impact both on public awareness concerning the tenure rights of poor women and men, and the formulation and implementation of laws and policies affecting such rights; and (ii) strengthened capacity of civil society and intergovernmental organizations to engage in advocacy and policy dialogue, as well as to influence the design and implementation of pro-poor land policies. LRI primary functions are: 1. To support the monitoring work of members, and the advocacy work that builds on that monitoring. This is achieved through support to the individual monitoring activities of members, through support for knowledge-sharing, through facilitating collaboration between CSOs and IGOs on monitoring and related advocacy, and through working to open up spaces for dialogue on the results of monitoring work. 2. To be a mechanism through which members can develop more comparable and comprehensive data collection, regionally and globally. This is achieved 9

11 through the facilitation of, and support for, collaborative activities at regional and global levels. 3. To be a mechanism to collate information and develop collective advocacyoriented outputs at national, regional and global levels. This is achieved through the facilitation of, and support for, collaborative activities at national, regional and global levels, including the production and distribution of national, regional and global reports and web-based resources, and through support to joint advocacy initiatives. 10

12 6.1 Lessons learnt from initial steps of LRI LRI was launched in 2004 at the request of the ILC Council. After a period of 4 years, ILC engaged in a comprehensive review and consultation of its membership on its involvement in monitoring land issues. The LRI review was done by involving a broad range of organizations from civil society and intergovernmental sectors in internet-based discussions and a workshop held in December ILC was originally envisaged to be the facilitator of a global multi-stakeholder effort to develop and implement a land monitoring system, including the development of an agreed set of land indicators. The function of this system was seen as promoting national compliance with international human rights standards and other conventions including conference declarations. This concept was developed as a result of ILC's participation in various global events, including its role as a convener of Ministerial Roundtables on land access at the High Level Segments of the UN ECOSOC. 4 However, while many key actors supported the idea in principle, they also have specific needs that were difficult to reconcile with the goal of a standardised system. Organisations such as IFAD, World Bank, UN-HABITAT and UNECA have chosen to pursue the development of indicators adapted to their own needs. Meanwhile for civil society organisations, we have learned, monitoring also serves diverse functions, such as empowerment, strategic planning and public awareness raising, not to mention advocacy on nationally specific priorities, that would not be served by a common global system. ILC has been supporting three CSO organizations (CEPES, ANGOC and CONGCOOP) to design and implement land monitoring systems in ten countries (see Annex two), in the meanwhile ILC took stock of the different initiatives launched by many IGOs. Thus Land Watch Asia and the observatories in Latin America, supported by and ILC and implemented by ILC members, have all been formed by small groups of organisations that, through the ILC network, have been able to identify common interests in monitoring particular land governance themes in particular ways. They have developed different monitoring strategies to suit their priorities and contexts. Accepting the diversity of contexts and institutional interests has been important. At the same time, ILC has also supported the exchange of experiences between regions, of which the December 2008 workshop is the latest example. The potential that exists for monitoring land related activities in promoting propoor land governance is not met by the reality of the monitoring that is actually taking place. Data available from governments, international organisations and civil society, often suffers from a lack of comparability. Moreover, there is also a need for indicators that are capable of informing more strongly on the impacts of land governance reform on poverty. 4 For example, ILC convened a seminar on Indicators of Secure Access to Resources at the 2005 session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development in partnership with UNDESA, UNIFEM, Habitat and the CSO Major Groups. 11

13 6.2 Expanding the LRI The review of the first phase of LRI (see LRI Workshop Report December ) has prompted a more bottom-up approach, aiming to foster the development of comprehensive, coordinated and comparable monitoring over time, while realising tangible gains in the present. It is based on identifying and capitalising on synergies that exist between the existing monitoring-related efforts of organisations in the civil society and intergovernmental sectors. Most importantly this involves bringing organisations together to share the findings of monitoring activities in a way that creates opportunities for dialogue, and facilitating the sharing of knowledge and experiences on monitoring strategies, so that organisations can learn from each other and also develop forms of collaboration on monitoring that continue to support their needs. During the LRI workshop in Rome, ILC was asked to contribute to fulfilling the existing vacuum of good synthesis information on land issues at the national, regional and global level. This new LRI phase will build on the existing work of IGOs and CSOs members, particularly the regional monitoring initiatives in Asia and Latin America. More emphasis is now given to collating at the national, regional and global levels the information generated by the monitoring activities of ILC members. LRI lead now to the development of a series of reports on land governance themes as a way of promoting and advancing global debate. LRI continues to support the ongoing land monitoring work of members. This will provide the basis for a coordinated set of country, regional and global reports, which will draw on the monitoring work of members as well as other significant sources of data that exist. The experience of collating comparable information at global, regional and national levels will be used at the end of the process to inform a feasibility study for setting up a global land index to allow comparison across countries of trends related to the social, economic and environmental functions of land. LRI focus on the following outputs: 1. LRI Country reports, collating secondary data to describe key land-related issues and trends for selected countries ( ) 2. LRI Regional reports that focus on specific regionally-relevant themes (2010) 3. LRI Global report with a deeper and cross-cutting analysis of the issues emerging in the national and regional initiatives (2011) 4. A feasibility study for setting up a global land index providing comparative data on access to land (2011) In producing these outputs, LRI supports a process-oriented approach, bringing together different members in the production of reports and use of the reports as a platform for further activities such as advocacy. A key point addressed during the LRI workshop of December 2008 was the

14 potential usefulness of LRI country reports. Such reports, based on the analysis of existing primary data, describes the key land related issues in a country; it gives a critical overview of the land policy situation, as well as mapping out the key actors related to land issues. The LRI country reports provide important inputs to national advocacy strategies as well as informing regional and global advocacy messages, but are also particularly useful for strategic planning by CSOs and contribute to knowledge exchange. LRI also support associated capacity building activities of members and the sharing of experiences and methodologies across countries and regions. Priority (but not exclusive 6 ) sources of information will be the field activities and monitoring results of ILC members at the national level. 7 The information collected for the country reports will go through a process of multi-stakeholder validation. Provisional list of LRI Country reports : Latin America Africa Asia Peru Zambia Indonesia Bolivia Malawi Bangladesh Nicaragua Madagascar Cambodia Honduras Niger The Philippines Guatemala Kenya India Nepal The basic assumption behind this initiative is that credible shared knowledge empowers multi-stakeholder dialogue and helps create the one of the key conditions for achieving the desired outcomes at a relatively low transaction cost. Building this shared knowledge, analysis and agreements will, among other factors, entail: 6 Sources of information to be used, among others, for the ILC country papers: Land assessment and monitoring results of CSOs active at national and regional level (CEPES, Land Watch Asia, LEAP, etc.) Geo-referenced information World Bank Land Governance Assessment Framework - LGAF - Registering property rural-urban linkages Land Rights and access indicator (IFAD/IFC) - FAOLEX National legal frameworks - Basic Elements on Land Tenure Systems - Right to Food Watch IFPRI Global Hunger Index 7 i.e. Bolivia: Fundacion TIERRA observatory, WB protierrasbo.org and Land Governance Assessment Framework, IFAD land indicator and COSOP, FAO and IFPRI food security indicators etc. 8 The list is composed of a selection of countries on the basis of ILC criteria: Relevance of ongoing initiatives and activities to pro-poor land governance and to priority thematic areas of ILC Potential for impact, lesson learning and scaling up Existing involvement of ILC members and partners Receptivity and commitment of government, CSOs and IGOs 13

15 Monitoring trends and the linkages between poverty eradication and secure land tenancy systems Identifying gaps in policies, implementation methods and outcomes achieved; Understanding the legal frameworks, current land policies and programmes being implemented by governments, donors and NGOs/CSOs; Developing an assessment of the obstacles and failures in promoting land access and secure land tenancy rights Developing and analysing scenarios according to different trends in access to land and natural resources The LRI regional level reports produced for Latin America, Africa and Asia during will be able to focus on specific regionally relevant issues. The regional dimension is mostly focused in opening multi-stakeholders spaces for dialogue supported by Regional reports with a leading theme. The LRI regional dimension is mainly based on qualitative assessment. Cross-regional capacity building activities on LRI methodology are planned. The development of country and regional reports will be used for producing the LRI global report (2011) with strong impact and distribution to offer deeper and sounder land analysis in the countries and regions where ILC is working. The systematization process for land-related data on selected countries is supported by the development of internet-based means for making the data widely available. The 2011 LRI global report will be on the state of access to land by poor women and men. Such a report is aimed at gathering and presenting the most up to date available data, providing an analysis of principle contributory factors related to tenure insecurity and putting forward key advocacy messages based on this evidence and analysis. The LRI process is aimed to contribute to a greater recognition and understanding of the links between land tenure, poverty and food security, including economic, social and environmental factors. In implementing LRI further collaboration is envisaged with other relevant initiatives, including the World Bank Land Governance Assessment Framework, AU/UNECA/AfDB Land Policy for Africa Initiative, the ICARRD follow-up led by FAO as well as FAO's voluntary guidelines on land governance, the IFPRI Food Portal and the Democratic Governance Assessments Programme and Governance Assessment Portal of the UNDP Oslo Governance Centre. 14

16 7. Inter-linkages between the Land Reporting Initiative and other ILC programs The International Land Coalition developed two initiatives, the LAND Partnership and the Commercial Pressure on Land Initiative that can be considered to complement the LRI. Land Alliances for National Development (LAND Partnership) was developed by ILC with the aim of strengthening country-level collaboration between state, civil society, bilateral and international stakeholders in order foster dialogue and negotiation leading to pro-poor land governance. Commercial Pressures on Land Assessing the distribution pattern of land ownership is important not only for assessing equity for its own sake. It is important to know whether poor and vulnerable sections of the population have access to land as a potential safety net in the face of economic downturns or food price inflation something seen as connected to food security. It is also important to monitor trends in land consolidation and the displacement of small-holders that may accompany expansion in large scale commercial agriculture or widespread debt recovery. ILC is strengthening collaboration between civil society organisations, intergovernmental agencies and research institutes in gathering information, stimulating further research and deepening the understanding of such trend's impact on poor people's access to land. 15

17 Annex 1: What data is being collected? Legal and policy frameworks: inputs Although there are databases allowing searches for land related laws and policies (e.g. FAOLEX) little work has been done to comprehensively and comparably assess the legal and policy frameworks of different countries. IFAD's indicator's include an assessment of legal frameworks, but the results are not disseminated. Within civil society, the members of Land Watch Asia have developed coordinated country studies with a particular focus on land policy, whilst ILC members in the Andean region have set up a Law in Action observatory to use common indicators to assess land-related legal frameworks, with a particular focus on the representation of international agreements within national frameworks. One of the outcomes of the December 2008 ILC workshop was a commitment to explore how these approaches can be combined, scaled-up and replicated in other regions. Administration and policy implementation: processes and outputs This area has long been the main focus of suggested land governance-related indicators. In fact, efficiency of registration processes and the extent of land titling are probably the most commonly suggested indicators of tenure security and good land governance. Data on processes and outputs of various kinds has been collected through initiatives such as the IFC Doing Business Survey and UN-HABITAT's Urban Observatory System. The Land Governance Assessment Framework that has been developed by the World Bank's Good Governance in Land Administration initiative, and that has been piloted in 2008, focuses on this area, and does so in considerable and comprehensive detail. Access to land and tenure security: outcomes The concept of access to land for the poor is an important one in international policy debates, and is even a relatively well represented idea in international agreements. This fact notwithstanding, it is rather poorly represented in the indicators that are in use or have been proposed. As an outcome of land governance processes, access to land can be said to cover issues such as: distribution of land ownership; access to natural resources such as water, forest products and pasture; affordability, of land and housing; and landlessness, homelessness, and squatting. The only measure of access to land that has been monitored comprehensively is land concentration. Land concentration is not necessarily a good measure of the access to land enjoyed by poor and vulnerable groups, particularly where these groups are dependant on informal and secondary tenure rights. It is commonly proposed that tenure security be assessed using indicators of administrative outputs such as the coverage of land registration. But such factors are outputs that influence tenure security outcomes, not security itself. Tenure security is represented by measures such as the frequency, severity and nature of disputes; the frequency of evictions; and perceptions of security. There have been efforts made to record evictions by, for example, UN-HABITAT and various CSOs such as AFRA in South Africa. Likewise household survey methods can be used to assess frequency of disputes and perceptions of security. The EC supported ISTT programme in Nicaragua, for example, piloted the inclusion of the question: Do you 16

18 fear eviction from your landholding? along with other questions related to tenure security. Impacts of land governance The impacts of land governance fall into two groups. The first are factors that can be directly linked to land governance outcomes, such as sustainable land management, and could well be measured part of an assessment of land governance. A survey question on whether landholders have invested in the productivity of their landholdings has been used, for example, by the ISTT programme in Nicaragua. The second are factors such as food security that are less directly linked. They are more likely to be covered by existing development indicators and as such could certainly inform and analysis of the impact of different forms of land governance. Land governance, gender and vulnerable groups In relation to land governance monitoring, measures of gender equality fall into three main types: questions about the legal standing of women (e.g. their right to inherit property); quantitative measures that can be disaggregated according to gender (e.g. possession of titles, rates of eviction); and questions about the actual situations of women (What decision-making power do women have over co-owned property? How many women actually inherit land?). Gender disaggregation of formalisation data is often put forward, but in fact such a measure may be misleading in certain contexts, formal ownership or co-ownership not being the same thing as actual access to and control over resources.9 In fact, the degree to which women are dependent on customary tenure rights (within the household and the community) may severely limit the gender-sensitivity of monitoring systems based on formal systems of land tenure administration. The interest in promoting pro-poor land governance may lead to a special focus on particular vulnerable groups. These include women, but also pastoralists, Indigenous Peoples, people accessing land through customary and common property regimes and tenant farmers. As with gender, the focus could be on legal protections, disaggregating quantitative data, and group specific issues. With a few exceptions, little attention could be paid to how the particular situations of these groups could be assessed. A significant problem is that monitoring systems based on formal systems of land tenure administration may be blind to the situations of land dependent groups who are not individual land owners, and blind to the access and relative security that certain non-formal tenure systems may provide. 9 For a discussion, see: Anne Lockley, 2006, A Piece of land or a piece of paper? Gendered indicators on property rights, paper presented at the IWDA Syposium, Canberra, June

19 Annex 2: Global collaboration for monitoring land rights through the ILC Land Reporting Initiative The Land Reporting Initiative was originally conceived as a way ILC could initiate a global multi-stakeholder effort to develop and implement a system to monitor trends in the area of land rights and agrarian reform. It was recognised that it was necessary to review the feasibility of this approach. This review took place through a facilitated internet discussion group involving nearly 50 individuals from member and partner organisations, which was initiated through the production of a working paper ( It culminated in the holding of a workshop, Working together to monitor secure access to land, held in Rome 8 th -9 th December The LRI workshop brought together 25 representatives of ILC members and partners to share experiences and discuss opportunities for working together and to decide on the best strategies for enhancing the monitoring of the implementation and impacts of land-related laws, policies and agreements (see: This process of review has thus had a valuable impact in terms of knowledge sharing and advancing collaboration and coordination within civil society and between CSOs and IGOs. The Land Reporting Initiative is due to be re-launched at the 2009 ILC assembly of members. Meanwhile a dedicated webpage has been set up and will be further expanded in early 2009 (see: LRI activities at national and regional levels: The following are key activities carried out under the umbrella of the Land Reporting initiative: Land Watch Asia Network members launched Land Watch Asia as a regional campaign to ensure that access to land, agrarian reform, and equitable and sustainable rural development were addressed in national and regional development agendas. A three-day Land Watch Asia planning meeting in March 2007 brought together civil society organisations from six countries: Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Nepal and the Philippines. Each participating organisation developed a country-level mapping study, not only to collect information but also as a platform for national dialogue, awareness campaigns and discussion across CSO networks. Regional components of the campaign included scoping studies of land policies and programs in the official development assistance (ODA) of Japan and Australia; in China s ODA, trade and bilateral agreements; and in regional institutions ADB, SAARC and ASEAN. The ILC Secretariat contributed to this work through a desk review and analysis of country strategy and project documents of intergovernmental organisations including the EC, IFAD and the World Bank. 18

20 In 2008 the draft country mapping studies and other institutional analyses were used as tools to open space for dialogue among civil-society organisations, government and inter-governmental institutions at the national and regional level. Country studies together with a review of ADB s initiatives on access to land were presented in a seminar on land reform at ADB headquarters in June The meeting provided an opportunity for knowledge-sharing and awareness-raising on land issues in Southeast Asia and South Asia. About 40 NGO representatives and ADB staff participated in the seminar. In addition, Land Watch participants attended the World Bank East Asia Consultation, the ASEAN-World Bank consultation on civil society policy, and an engagement with the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting. Country-level dialogues took place in each of the Land Watch countries; in several countries with open political space and a strong civil society presence, including Philippines, Indonesia, India and Nepal, land issues have achieved greater prominence in media and in national policy discussions as a consequence. In 2009 the resulting studies will be published in the form of a book containing the six abridged country papers and a series of issue briefs. The print run will be 1000 copies, to be disseminated in the region and globally through ILC. The publications will also be available on CD-ROM and through ANGOC s website. In addition, a new country study will be completed on land issues in Pakistan through member organisation SCOPE, which will be followed by round-table discussions and a summary version in Urdu to be disseminated in the country. Land Indicators in Peru Under the LRI, the approach taken to developing indicators for monitoring land issues has focused on developing context specific indicators adapted to particular regions, issues and advocacy objectives, rather than developing one-size-fits-all indicators for global use. This approach has been taken in view of the need to respond to and support the specific advocacy needs of members at the national and regional levels and in view of the paucity of globally comparable data sources. While indicator development has been and is an aspect of the activities of Land Watch Asia and the newly established observatories in Latin America, the activity which most explicitly focused on indicator development was the initiative lead by CEPES in Peru. The initiative began with a review of existing literature, the consultation of different stakeholders and the preparation of a discussion paper for an electronic conference. The paper draws upon studies on the measurement of conditions and land rights efforts at the national level, by IFAD, ILC/CAPRi, USAID, The World Bank and UN-Habitat. As result the DGroup discussion proposed a system for monitoring access to and tenure security over land by poor rural communities in the Andean region with a clear definition of the indicators, an institutional proposal and a working methodology. A revised document on land indicators was presented and shared with a broader audience. CEPES organised a 19

21 forum in Lima August 2007 for sharing knowledge on the impact of globalisation on land rights in different Peruvian contexts with, among others, ILC and FAO support. This process led directly to the formation of the observatory on law in action being piloted by CEPES and eventually replicated in Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela by ILC members as a first stage in developing a comparable, region-wide approach. The initiative on land indicators for the Andean region identified what are termed normative indicators related to the protection of land rights within international agreements, national constitutions and national legal frameworks as an appropriate starting point for this type of CSO monitoring in the region because of the advocacy relevance of the topic and the feasibility of collecting the data (see: In Central America, ILC supported the development of an Observatory on the impact of free trade agreements on peasant agriculture and land concentration Established by members in Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala with CONGCOOP acting as a focal point and, this observatory is working to establish a baseline and develop a set of indicators for assessing the impact of free trade agreements in Central America and their influence on land trends. Another priority has been given by ILC members on Monitoring System on the Implementation of Agrarian Policy and on Peasant Food Production. This monitoring system has also been established by members in Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala. Participants are working to monitor the implementation and impacts of land policies and programs promoted at national level and their impact on equity, food production and environment. The design of both land-related Land Observatories will be completed in June