Use: Influencing policy for equity and inclusion

To what extent is there evidence that land data is being used to influence policy in the interests of equitable and inclusive land tenure and use?

Definitions

Definitions and Identification

When available, land data can help identify inequity and exclusion, as well as paths to reduce them. This indicator tracks evidence of land data being used to influence policy in the interests of more equitable and inclusive land tenure and use. Examples may come from governments as well as other actors.

This indicator focuses on uses of land tenure and use data, assessed in the land module's availability indicators. The following examples sketch possible use cases, organized around gender and indigeneity:

• Journalists might use land data to write stories on gender inequity in a given country, illustrated through land tenure.
• Scholars might use land tenure and use data to analyze the impact of tenure changes in indigenous-occupied lands on landscape conservation.
• Civil society organizations might track the impact of policies on women's land tenure and use realities; for example, there is a growing interest in tracking the gender implications of large-scale land acquisitions or land reforms.
• Journalists might use, for a variety of purposes, land tenure data to track the extent of land that indigenous people hold rights over; for example, analyzing land management to address climate change.
• Academics might analyze whether urban and/or rural planning fits diverse needs, including women's needs, through the lens of land use data, as shown by studies that highlight that current cities are not built thinking about women needs.

Research Guidance

Many different actors may use land data to influence land policies, through a variety of means. Consequently, evidence for answering this indicator may take many different forms—such as reports, events, tools, and forums—and be produced by a range of stakeholders, including journalists, lobbyists, NGOs, grassroot organizations, academics, and others. What will be common to all of the use cases gathered for this indicator, however, is that they use land data to promote equity and inclusion. This may, for example, involve raising awareness of issues, proposing policy reforms, tracking the relevant effects of policies that already exist.

Starting points

• Search:
  • News media for articles on "women" + "tenure insecurity" or "land rights," and "indigenous" + "tenure insecurity" or "land rights." Note: search as well for the specific Indigenous peoples in the country.
  • Google Scholar, arXiv, ResearchGate for recent papers on "land use" + [country] for examples of academic research drawing on land use data and inclusion.
  • Websites of local community or civil society organizations focused on land rights.
• Consult:
  • Journalists who cover issues of land rights, tenure insecurity, sex and/or gender and land, indigeneity and land.
  • Community or civil society organizations that focus on land rights.
  • Scholars at local universities that work with land and city planning.

What to look for?

Taking into account both land tenure data and land use data, look for evidence that can answer the following questions:

• Is this type of data being used regularly by journalists, civil society organizations, academics, and other stakeholders to address equity and inclusion issues and to influence policy towards more equitable land tenure and land use? Or is it perhaps only used infrequently? Or never, as far as you can determine?
• What kinds of impacts on policies do you see from these uses, and how significant are these impacts?
• To what extent is there evidence that land data is being used to influence policy in the interests of more equitable land tenure and use?

National and sub-national considerations

For this indicator, you may track and assess national and sub-national examples without distinction; note in the justification box if the examples you found mostly used national or sub-national data.

Question sub-components

Show/hide supporting questions

Existence

• Is there evidence of this data being used to influence policy in the interests of more equitable land tenure and use?
  • No evidence of actors or entities using this data to influence policy in the interests of more equitable land tenure and use.
  • There are isolated cases of actors or entities using this kind of data to influence policy in the interests of more equitable land tenure and use.

    Supporting questions: Please provide the URL(s) of these use cases, and explain what kind of stakeholders are using this data: academics, civil society organizations, journalists, etc.

  • There are a number of cases of actors or entities using this kind of data to influence policy in the interests of more equitable land tenure and use.

    Supporting questions: Please provide the URL(s) of these use cases, and explain what kind of stakeholders are using this data: academics, civil society organizations, journalists, etc.

  • There are widespread and regular cases of actors or entities using this kind of data to influence policy in the interests of more equitable land tenure and use.

    Supporting questions: Please provide the URL(s) of these use cases, and explain what kind of stakeholders are using this data: academics, civil society organizations, journalists, etc.

Elements

• User groups:

• There is evidence of civil society organizations using data in this way. (No, Partially, Yes)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially or Yes: If available, please provide URLs for one or more examples of the most significant uses you're aware of.

  If Partially: Please briefly explain your 'Partially' answer.

• There is evidence of media using data in this way. (No, Partially, Yes)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially or Yes: If available, please provide URLs for one or more examples of the most significant uses you're aware of.

  If Partially: Please briefly explain your 'Partially' answer.

• There is evidence of academics using data in this way. (No, Partially, Yes)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially or Yes: If available, please provide URLs for one or more examples of the most significant uses you're aware of.

  If Partially: Please briefly explain your 'Partially' answer.

• There is evidence of the private sector using data in this way. (No, Partially, Yes)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially or Yes: If available, please provide URLs for one or more examples of the most significant uses you're aware of.

  If Partially: Please briefly explain your 'Partially' answer.

• Specific features:

• At least one of the examples identified describes using artificial Intelligence or machine learning to process data (No, Partially, Yes) Answer 'Partially' if you have doubts about the accuracy of claims to be using AI/machine-learning.

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially or Yes: Please provide brief details of the example(s) and how they describe using AI/machine-learning.

Extent

• Is there evidence that these uses have had or are having meaningful positive impacts on land policy? Even though it may be hard to link advocates´ actions to an effective policy change towards more equitable land tenure and land use, evidence could be tracked about policy updates after public debates and lobbying strategies.
  • No
  • Partially

    Supporting questions: Please provide any URLs that document this evidence.Please briefly explain your 'Partially' answer.

  • Yes

    Supporting questions: Please provide any URLs that document this evidence.

Indicator Justification

Equity and inclusion are key areas of concern for land governance. Longstanding inequities in land tenure and ownership leave women and traditionally disadvantaged groups vulnerable. In some countries, for example, legislation and cultural or religious biases bar women from owning, inheriting, and retaining land and property after divorce. Scholars question whether planned cities sufficiently address women's needs (Malaza et al. 2009; Micklow et al. n.d.; UNHabitat 2019) and have found important gender-related variation in land-use decisions in rural areas (Villamor et al. 2014). Further, around the world, indigenous peoples, migrants, and herders suffer land tenure insecurity.

This indicator aligns with SDG indicators 1.4.2: “Proportion of total adult population with secure tenure rights to land, with legally recognized documentation, and who perceive their rights to land as secure, by sex and by type of tenure” and 5.a.1 “(a) Proportion of total agricultural population with ownership or secure rights over agricultural land, by sex; (b) share of women among owners or rights-bearers of agricultural land, by type of tenure;” as well as the UN-Habitat Policy and Plan for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women in Urban Development and Human Settlements program. It is also supports SDG goal 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities.