Short Abstract:

A roundtable of international researchers and policy practitioners on the current status and challenges of land reforms and sustainable land use. In the unsettled global context of COVID, climate change and renewed nationalism, we ask what should be the priorities for development research on land?

Long Abstract:

Despite recognition of the importance of secure land rights for development goals, and continuing concerns amongst international agencies for responsible land-based investments in agriculture, extractives and urban sectors, public action to secure tenure rights and strengthen land governance has been slow to materialise, largely driven by growth priorities. Globally, both scientific research and policy making on land tend to divide between parallel silos that rarely interact, focused on land tenure rights, governance, and land policy, on the one hand, and on sustainable land use, on the other.

In the unsettling global context of climate change, the COVID pandemic and its economic impacts, and renewed nationalism in politics, this roundtable brings together researchers and policy practitioners from UK and international agencies to reflect on:

• Where do processes of land law and land administration reform begun in the 1990s stand today?

• How tenure and land administration systems can best be adapted and developed to be genuinely inclusive, sustain remaining global commons and address indigenous and community land claims, in addition to securing individual property rights?

• How do rights to land and property fit into efforts to promote social and economic recovery and address inequality following the COVID pandemic?

• What should be the roles of the private sector and development finance institutions, alongside public bodies?

• How can policy address the importance of land users' perceptions of tenure security for sustainable resource management, investment, mental health & well-being?

• What, now, are the priorities and future directions for research?