World Bank Land Conference 2024

The World Bank Land Conference has become one of the largest international events on land governance. It brings together over 1,500 participants from across the globe – including representatives from government, academia, civil society, and the private sector – to discuss new research, innovations, practices, and policies to strengthen land and resource governance.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) leads global engagement on land and resource governance through its expertise in advancing land tenure and property rights, programming to secure inclusive and equitable rights to land and natural resources for women and Indigenous Peoples, and addressing development challenges associated with critical minerals.  

Stop by our booth for our new conference handouts:

USAID’s Agenda and Presentations

Join USAID for a series of “Coffee Talks” at our booth on Tuesday, May 14 to learn more about our work!

Monday, May 13
  • Global Land Governance and Policy Forum, State of Land (1:00p – 1:45p EDT, Preston)
    • Karol Boudreaux, Senior Land and Resource Governance Advisor, USAID/Washington
  • Ensuring that the Greening Economy is Just for the Land Holders (3:30p – 5:30p EDT, MC 2-800)
Tuesday, May 14
  • Join members from USAID’s Land and Resource Governance Division for a series of Coffee Talks at the USAID booth! (10a – 5p EDT, USAID Booth in Atrium)
  • Do Institutional Design and State Capacity Affect Demand for Property Title? (10:30a – 12:30p EDT, MC 8-100
    • Yuliya Panfil, Land and Resource Governance Lead on USAID’s Integrated Natural Resource Management Activity
  • Integrated Land Policy Implementation – Cross Ministerial Coordination and Barriers to Securing Land Rights for Development (11:00a – 12:30p EDT, MC 4-800)
    • Matt Sommerville, Land and Resource Governance Specialist on USAID’s Integrated Land and Resource Governance II Activity
  • Unlocking Community Resilience: An Integrated Approach to Climate Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction (11:00a – 12:30p EDT, MC 2-800)
    • Karol Boudreaux, Senior Land and Resource Governance Advisor, USAID/Washington
Wednesday, May 15
  • Customary and Statutory Land Administration Challenges in the Era of Climate Change: Voices from the Grassroots (11:00a – 12:30p EDT, MC 2-800)
    • Mark Freudenberger, Land and Resource Governance Specialist on USAID’s Integrated Land and Resource Governance II Activity
  • Innovative Approaches to Unlock Rural and Indigenous Women’s Land Rights for Sustainable Development (4:00p – 5:30p EDT, Preston)
    • Thais Bessa, Senior Gender and Social Inclusion Advisor on USAID’s Integrated Land and Resource Governance II Activity
Thursday, May 16
  • Securing Forest Tenure – Strengthening Multi-Stakeholder Action Panel 1 (9:00a – 10:15a EDT, Preston)
    • Gillian Caldwell, Chief Climate Officer and Deputy Assistant Administrator, USAID
  • Securing Forest Tenure – Strengthening Multi-Stakeholder Action Panel 2 (10:30a – 11:45a EDT, Preston)
    • Karol Boudreaux, Senior Land and Resource Governance Advisor, USAID/Washington
  • Securing Women’s Land Rights for a More Livable Planet (2:00p – 3:45p EDT, MC 2-800)
    • Karol Boudreaux, Senior Land and Resource Governance Advisor, USAID/Washington

Coffee Talks on Tuesday, May 14

If you are attending the Conference, you can connect with USAID at our booth in the World Bank’s Wolfensohn Atrium. On Tuesday, May 14, we will host a series of “Coffee Talks” with LRG Division staff where you can ask your questions, learn about our work, and tell us about yours. Here’s the schedule:

10:00a - 10:45a11:30a - 12:15p2:00p - 2:45p3:15p - 4:00p4:15p - 5:00p

Speaker(s)
Stephen Brooks, LRG Division Chief

Topic
USAID’s Land and Resource Framework

Speaker(s)
Ioana Bouvier, Senior Spatial Science & Technology Advisor

Janet Nackoney, Land and Resource Governance Officer

Topic
Geospatial Data and Land Rights

Speaker(s)
Sam Turano, Deputy Division Chief and Minerals & Mining Lead

Chloe Cole, Natural Resources Officer

Topic
Critical Minerals

Speaker(s)
Caleb Stevens, Senior Advisor, Governance and Natural Environment

Topic
Implementation Science

Speaker(s)
Karol Boudreaux, Senior Land and Resource Governance Advisor

Topic
Women’s Land Rights

World Bank Land and Poverty Conference 2019

The World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty has become one of the largest international events on land governance. It brings together over 1,500 participants from across the globe—including representatives from governments, academics, civil society, and the private sector—to discuss new research, innovations, practices, and policies to strengthen land and resource governance. Read more about the 2018 conference here.

USAID’s Agenda and Presentations

Make sure to stop by the USAID booth in the Atrium anytime during the week to have a hands-on demonstration of the Mobile Applications to Secure Tenure (MAST) technology. You can also sign up for the E3/Land newsletter and check out the MAST Learning Platform. USAID work will be featured in presentations throughout the conference. Please note that the schedule is subject to change.
Tuesday, March 26
Wednesday, March 27
  • Session 08-06: The Political Economy of Land Tenure Reform
    Session Chair:
    Caleb Stevens, Land and Resource Governance Advisor, USAID Land
Thursday, March 28

Perspectives



 

World Bank Land and Poverty Conference 2018

The World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty has become one of the largest international events on land governance. It brings together over 1,200 participants from across the globe—including representatives from governments, academics, civil society, and the private sector—to discuss new research, innovations, practices, and policies to strengthen land and resource governance.

USAID’s Agenda and Presentations

Attending the conference? Make sure to stop by USAID’s booth in the Atrium anytime during the week to say hi and have a hands on demonstration of the mobile technology powering USAID’s Mobile Applications to Secure Tenure. You can also sign up for E3/Land’s newsletter and register for the Land Tenure and Property Rights MOOC! USAID’s work will be featured in presentations throughout the conference. Please note that the schedule is subject to change.
Tuesday, March 20
Wednesday, March 21

Perspectives

Land Tenure and Property Rights Issues and Best Practices Training: Lusaka, Zambia

HOW TO REGISTER

Search for ‘Land Tenure’ in USAID University.

OVERALL COURSE OBJECTIVE

This course will provide USG foreign assistance practitioners training that strengthens their knowledge and skills in understanding the relationships between land tenure and property rights (LTPR) and critical USG international development strategic priorities; identifying and addressing development challenges in their portfolios related to LTPR; and improving the effectiveness of Agency and USG programming.

BACKGROUND

Rights to land and resources are at the center of our most pressing development issues: economic growth, food security, conflict, urbanization, gender equality, climate change, and resilience. Secure land and property rights create incentives for investment, broad-based economic growth, and good stewardship of natural resources. Insecure property rights and weak land governance systems often provoke conflict and instability, which can trap communities, countries, and entire regions in a cycle of poverty.

This 1-week course is designed for USAID and USG international development professionals, who want to strengthen their knowledge and skills in addressing land tenure and property rights challenges.

This course provides participants with a solid understanding of the issues, theories, evidence, and best practices around land tenure, property rights, and effective international development programming.

PARTICIPANT LEARNING OBJECTIVES

By the end of the course the participants will be able to:

  1. Describe the importance of LTPR as a critical development issue and understand considerations for USG foreign assistance programming.
  2. Define common land sector terms and concepts and be able to explain the differences between formal and informal land systems.
  3. Describe the linkages between LTPR and conflict, economic growth, responsible land-based investment, food security, gender equality and women’s empowerment, and natural resource management in developing countries.
  4. Understand and describe best practices for applying LTPR in the context of USG foreign assistance programming and identify available resources, USAID-supported technologies, methodologies, and tools for LTPR.

COURSE OUTLINE

  1. Introduction to Land Tenure and Property Rights
  2. Property Rights and Economic Growth
  3. Land and Resource Tenure, NRM, and Biodiversity
  4. Land Tenure and Geospatial Data and Technology
  5. Land, Property, and Conflict
  6. Land Rights, Gender Equality, and Women’s Empowerment
  7. Introduction to Land Administration
  8. Responsible Land-based Investment
  9. Land and Food Security
  10. USAID Land Tenure and Property Rights Technical Services, Resources, and Mechanisms
  11. Conclusion

SCENARIOS

This course will move through four real-world example scenario-based exercises to practice applying course learnings to improve USAID development programming and decision making.

PRESENTERS

Stephen Brooks

Land and Resource Governance Advisor, USAID E3/Land

Mr. Brooks is E3/Land’s Land Tenure and Resource Governance Advisor. He leads USAID’s work on tenure and resource governance in the context of global climate change and forestry and biodiversity, and manages the Office’s Tenure and Global Climate Change program. Mr. Brooks also serves as the E3/Land Office’s primary liaison for the USAID Asia Bureau, and leads USAID interagency collaboration with the US Forest Service and NOAA on the intersection between tenure, forest and marine issues.

Mr. Brooks received a master’s degree in Environmental Science with a focus on International Development and Conservation from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Science. He also received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Florida’s School of Forest Resources and Conservation.

Mr. Brooks brings expertise in land tenure and resource governance specific to international development and natural resource management. He also brings over 10 years of experience in forestry and coastal resource management, and 5 years of experience in urban natural resource management issues.

Darryl Vhugen

Independent Consultant

Mr. Vhugen, J.D., is a land tenure consultant who advises UN agencies, governments, private sector institutions, and communities on how to achieve socially responsible and financially sustainable investments in land and natural resources. His work focuses on protecting and strengthening the land rights of the poor in the context of large-scale land-based investments and climate change.

Previously, Mr. Vhugen led Landesa’s work in Burma/Myanmar and provided legal and policy analysis to address land rights and climate change challenges in sub-Saharan Africa, India, and China. Before that, he was Landesa’s first State Director for Andhra Pradesh, India. Mr. Vhugen also spent 25 years in private practice as an international and domestic business lawyer and litigator, advising foreign and domestic clients in a broad range of business matters. Mr. Vhugen has field experience in Japan, Cambodia, the Philippines, Myanmar, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Mexico, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Uganda and Mozambique.

Leonard Rolfes Jr.

Chief of Party and Land Tenure Specialist, The Cloudburst Group

Mr. Rolfes Jr. is Chief of Party on the Evaluation, Research, and Communication task order, a USAID-financed program being implemented by The Cloudburst Group. In this role, Mr. Rolfes provides management support to his team to facilitate their research, evaluation, communications, training and pilot project work, and engages with USAID on behalf of the program to ensure client needs are being satisfied. Mr. Rolfes also provides land tenure technical services on certain parts of the program, notably the Mobile Applications to Secure Tenure pilot project.

Mr. Rolfes is a lawyer by training and has 25 years of legal and implementation experience in the land-tenure field. Mr. Rolfes has worked in 17 countries, primarily in the former Soviet Union and sub-Saharan Africa, on issues such as land privatization, farm restructuring, land registration, formalizing customary land rights, and increasing women’s access to land. Apart from his work for Cloudburst, notable achievements include providing advice in the drafting of Ukraine’s Land Code, and serving as project lead on large land programs in Burkina Faso and Mongolia financed by the Millennium Challenge Corporation.

For more information, contact Jeremy Green, E3 Land and Urban: jegreen@usaid.gov

Property Rights and Artisanal Diamond Development (PRADD) Brown Bag

On Wednesday August 7th, 2013 USAID hosted a Brown Bag with Dr. Catherine Picard, Environment and Natural Resource Officer for the Bureau of African Affairs at the U.S. State Department; Pete Chirico, Research Geographer at the US Geological Survey; and Tim Fella, Land Tenure and Conflict Specialist within the Land Tenure and Property Rights Division at USAID. In cooperation with the State Department and USGS, USAID provides support to the US Government on the Kimberley Process; an initiative intended to eliminate trade in conflict diamonds. USAID recently concluded the PRADD project; an activity designed to reduce conflict, strengthen property rights and improve livelihoods of artisanal miners, and is finalizing plans for a follow on activity. The Brown Bag focused on the PRADD activities in Liberia, Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire and the Central African Republic, as well as on the support provided to the Kimberley Process and the collaborative efforts of multiple USG entities.

Presentations:

USGS Diamond Assessment Project Scientific Investigation’s Reports (SIRs)

USGS Project Publications on Alluvial Deposit Modeling

World Bank Land and Poverty Conference 2015

Why Land Rights Matter InfographicView USAID’s infographic on “Why Land Rights Matter.”

Every year, the World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty brings together representatives from governments, the development community, civil society, academia, and the private sector to discuss issues of concern to communities, land practitioners and policymakers worldwide. The growing importance of this event highlights the increasing recognition that resource governance is central to alleviating poverty, promoting economic development, improving food security, limiting conflicts, and increasing stability.

To keep up with the advancing global dialogue on land and resource rights, follow news and events from the 2015 World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty on this page.