Message from the Managing Director

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.

The energy, the elation and warm hugs were really felt as Tony, Renee and I, returned to Washington D.C. for the World Bank Land Conference in May this year. It was great to be part of a number of presentations and panel sessions during the busy week. The pre-organisation of the panels led to more than just sharing content, but engaging with panellists and the audience on the topics we were delving into, these included: land data standards, access to land for infrastructure, steps to achieving just and equitable land transitions, transformative land-based investment models for agrifood systems and women’s land rights. Only registered participants can view the recorded sessions still viewable through the Attendee Hub for anyone interested. Happy to also share materials we presented, please get in touch.

Following this event, Kate Fairlie headed over to Africa to attend the G20 Global Land Initiative Roundtable on  Gender Issues in Post-Mining Land Restoration in Takoradi, Ghana, an event she co-initiated along with the Nana Ama Yirrah from COLANDEF – you can read more about that in this newsletter. The event immediately preceded the International Federation of Surveyors (FIG) 2024 Working Week in Accra, where Kate again co-led various women’s access land sessions and papers on professionalisation, spatial planning and land transaction toolkits. All the presentations can be found here on the FIG page.

We are thrilled to be back on the ground in Maseru and beyond in Lesotho. We launched the Land and Gender (L&G) Consultancy under the MCA-Lesotho II Compact, funded by MCC. The project team arrived to quickly and deeply connect to the difficult issues the ambitious project will face in terms of women’s empowerment, land rights and modernization of horticulture practices. Renee Chartres, LEIs Project Director for L&G, was with the team in June and we encourage you to learn more here. Our Team is being ably guided by the management team of Letele Mosae, Esther Obaikol and Kuena Thabane.

On the other side of our continent, we cross to Vanuatu in the Pacific, where we commenced work on Vanuatu Affordable and Resilient Settlements (VARS) to provide a technical advisory team for Land Development Policy, Legal and Marketing Advisory Services. Kate Fairlie joins consultants, Nik Regenvanu and Jennifer Day for the next 9 months, and we look forward to providing detailed insights soon. An update from our teams first in country visit can be read here and the project brief can be found here.

Our TLI and MRLG projects in the Mekong continue at pace and we look forward to jointly holding the Annual Multistakeholder Dialogue for RAI in Vientiane, 29-30 August, along with some new energy from Brooke Bush, Grantee Manager, MRLG and Naomi Basik-Treaner, Regional RAI adviser with MRLG and TLI. Check out the MRLG Facebook page and new website for update-to-date information.

On the outgoing side of operations, the project we were implementing for the World Bank since Feb 2022, Enhancing Renewable Energy Investments and Access to Land in Bangladesh came to a close in May, and we’ve proudly handed over our open source solar siting tool to PowerCell, to our Bangladeshi government counterparts. The tool is also hosted on github. Likewise, we’ve wrapped up Phase 2 of the land tenure support we’ve been providing to the Government of Nauru together with Metrocology – with a final and very well received presentation to the Minister. Our contributions have been providing detailed advice on government access to land for infrastructure and housing development, and dispute resolution, as well as facilitating mediation accreditation for a small cohort of Nauruan partners in Brisbane.

As you can see, it’s been a full six months of activities. We’d love to hear from you if you are interested in more details, feel free to reach out to me, Kate Rickersey. krickersey@landequity.com.au