The 2014 World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty will take place at the World Bank Headquarters in Washington, D.C. on March 24 – 27, 2014. The theme of the 15th annual conference is “Integrating Land Governance into the Post-2015 Agenda: Harnessing Synergies for Implementation and Monitoring Impact.”
USAID and the World Bank are committed to strengthening land tenure and property rights to address the challenges affecting emerging economies. As in past years, USAID will serve as a conference partner and sponsor. According to Tim Fella, USAID Land Tenure and Conflict Advisor, “USAID invests in and is committed to the success of this annual conference because it is the premier land event, and one of the best opportunities to influence ideas and practice in property rights.”
Papers are invited for presentations at the conference in seven thematic areas:
- Securing and protecting land rights from a gender perspective
- Managing urban landscapes
- Attracting responsible land-based investment for local benefits and common resource management
- Maximizing benefits from spatial data
- Strengthening country level institutions
- Fostering transparency in land ownership, use, and administration
- Research on key aspects of land governance
Those who are interested in presenting at the conference should submit an initial 800 to 1,500 word abstract by November 17, 2013 (or November 10 for a group proposal) and should be willing to review up to four other abstracts. Final papers are expected to be between 6,000 and 12,000 words.
The World Bank conference will echo other global conferences this year that have featured discussions about making land tenure and property rights a central theme of a global post-2015 development agenda. Last week, a conference on community land and resource rights was co-organized by Helvetas Swiss Intercooperation, International Land Coalition (ILC), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Oxfam, and the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) in Interlaken, Switzerland. Thomson Reuters Foundation reported that attendees demonstrated “support for increased dialogue between conservation groups and local communities, whose interests can clash, as well as for crafting indicators to measure progress on strengthening community land rights as part of the post-2015 development framework now under discussion.”
A similar consensus is expected to emerge from the 40th Session of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), which will be held in Rome, Italy the week of October 7, 2013. One side event to watch will be “Land tenure and property rights in a Post-2015 Agenda – What’s best for food security, growth and poverty reduction?” hosted by the United Kingdom’s Department of International Development (DFID) with participation by USAID, MCC, Global Land Tool Network (GLTN) and Landesa. According to Dr. Gregory Myers, Division Chief for the Land Tenure and Property Rights Division at USAID, “the United States Government views land tenure and property rights as a critical element of the post-2015 development agenda. Property rights are a building block to help lift people out of poverty – especially women.”