Latest News

If 2024 was a day out of the office, it would have been to a theme park. We took many rides (a couple too many) on the roller coaster with tender proposals and travel, and not enough time at the picnic tables to exchange and connect. The unpredictability and sometime rapid pace of work in our field is what we have come to know. Very fortunately at LEI, we have a strong team who embrace the demands that allow us to pivot quickly and progress effectively.  We aim to find a steady pace for impactful work in 2025 as we see our projects move into implementation, wrap up and roll-over phases.

Finance for nature-based solutions is on the upswing. The voluntary carbon market (VCM) and carbon investments have seen remarkable growth, particularly for projects that incentivize protection of forests and other landscapes in carbon-rich regions such as the Mekong, and is projected to mobilize up to US$5 billion annually in the next decade. Yet, like any credible market, the VCM must be inclusive, grounded in an enabling policy environment, and with mutual benefits for people, nature, and climate. But the price of carbon has taken a plunge in recent years (Forest Trends 2024, World Bank 2024) as a result of a host of issues and concerns that are summarized as a lack of environmental and social “integrity.” Though not all forest-based carbon projects have come under scrutiny, they currently command weaker prices than many other sectors, signaling a lack of market confidence.  

Naia Webb (on the far right in the photo above) joined the Land Equity International team at the end of last year in a new position in the company as a Research and Communications Officer! Naia brings with her experience in climate advocacy and a passion for impactful storytelling. Naia is a recent graduate from the University of Wollongong and over the coming years we look forward to fostering her career in environmental advocacy. We are keen to use Naia’s skills to strengthen our communication materials and company strategy for project knowledge, while also advancing our research initiatives to support good land governance worldwide.

Land Equity International was invited to contribute to the publication and interviewed Dr. Sochanny Hak (Dr Channy) and Dr Hue Le in an article titled ‘Giving voice to smallholder women farmers in the Mekong Region’ (pp 50-53).  This article discusses the Mekong Region Land Governance (MRLG) project which over the past decade has had a key focus on securing land tenure for small-holder farmers. Designed by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), co-financed by Germany and Luxemburg, implemented by Land Equity International and GRET, and shaped by political economy thinking, the project has intentionally committed to over a decade of momentum building activities. 

Land Equity International (LEI) is ready to hire a passionate and skilled Research and Communications Officer to help advance equitable land governance worldwide. Continue here for more details.

It has been a super productive and exciting time here at LEI over the past six months with tenders, international conferences and bigger still, project mobilisations. We won’t be enjoying long summer holidays like our northern partners but aiming for some crisp short winter-breaks down-under instead.

Why did three members of the LEI team travel to Lesotho in the last three months? Because we kicked off with our national and internationally staffed team, a five-year contract by the US-funded Millennium Challenge Corporation to support the modernisation of the Rural Land Registration System in Lesotho, with a particular emphasis on supporting the accessibility and inclusiveness of that system for women! Our contract is called the Land and Gender (L&G) consultancy.

No country has yet achieved middle-income status without urbanising (World, Bank, 2012). Yet governments around the world are racing to keep pace with the infrastructure demands of rapid urbanisation. Like many cities around the world, Port Vila is facing an affordable housing shortage – with over 1000ha of new serviced land needed by 2030 to meet requirements, and an estimated 80% of city residents already suffering from rental stress. The Vanuatu Affordable and Resilient Settlements (VARS) project is seeking to help grow government and developer capacity to address the affordable housing and resilient infrastructure shortage.

Globally, women currently own and control less than 20% of the world’s land. In lower income (‘developing’) countries, this figure is as low as 10%. Low documentation levels are an exacerbating factor – 75% of the world’s population cannot prove they own the land on which they live and work, and it’s estimated that 90% of Africa’s land mass remains undocumented.  What this means is increased vulnerability for women – women who farm the land, live on the land, invest on the land, but who – without their rights recognised – ultimately have no control over the land.

In just a few days the World Bank’s newly relaunched Annual Land Conference will commence in Washington DC! The 2024 Conference, which has the theme Securing Land Tenure and Access for Climate Action, aims to highlight effective strategies for securing land tenure and access in support of climate change mitigation and adaption.

On Thursday 15 February, the Mekong Region Land Governance (MRLG) project and the Land Portal launched the first webinar in the State of Land in the Mekong series. The series, which will consist of three webinars across 2024 and 2025, aims to shine a spotlight on land issues in the Mekong region during a time of immense rural transformation.

The Mekong Region Land Governance Project aims to improve land governance in four of the Mekong countries, by empowering local reform actors, building alliances, and supporting policy influencing activities. The Project takes a regional approach across Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam to support cross country learning and to facilitate and open up space for dialogue and alliance building. The Project has been designed to deliver the following key objective: Smallholder women and men farmers in CLMV countries, especially those belonging to ethnic minorities, have secure and equitable access to and control over agricultural land, forest and fisheries.