Securing the access to land is critical for millions of poor small-scale farmers and their families. The use of agricultural land often is the only source of income and livelihood for most small-scale farmers and their families. Nevertheless, about 1.75 billion people in rural areas live from subsistence agriculture without having access to officially recognized land registration systems. Especially already poor and marginalized indigenous smallholder farmers must therefore be strengthened in their rights and their capacity to act, for a needs-based and sustainable use of land and resources. For women and women-led households the situation is often worse as in many contexts they cannot legally own land.
Security of land rights is central to preserving livelihoods, maintaining social stability, and increasing incentives for investment and for sustainable, productive land use. If access to land and other resources like water or grazing land for livestock is not ensured, this can then lead to major intra-community conflicts, contribute to food insecurity and promote the overexploitation of resources. To address sustainable land management, cross-sectoral and participatory land use planning and allocation must be promoted, in particular for women and marginalized population groups. Pastoralists also need secure access to land for their livestock and their role for maintaining healthy ecosystems needs to be better recognised. Sustainable land management needs to work with and increase agrobiodiversity, thus also contributing to an increased resilience to climate change and climate-related disasters.
In this area of work, FAKT services include:
- Support to (digital) learning and exchange among organisations working for access to land
- Development of (digital) monitoring systems
- Community mapping to document access to land and for data collection
- Studies and publications
