Land in the SDGs discussion

Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty

24 March 2015

Washington DC

Background:

The Open Working Group (OWG) on the Sustainable Development Goals for the post-2015 development agenda completed its work on 19 July 2014 and the final report was welcomed by the UN General Assembly, which decided that this “shall be the main basis for integrating sustainable development goals into the post-2015 development agenda”.

Land in the SDGs:

The report offers a comprehensive vision on land issues including access and use (and not only of land but also water, forests and other related resources)

Developing an indicator framework I

• Preparations are underway to develop a viable indicator framework for SDG monitoring. The UN Technical Support Team (TST) – a coordination mechanism for technical inputs from the UN System into the intergovernmental Post-2015 process – is working on a preliminary proposal of possible indicators for the SDGs and their targets.

Defining indicators

• A guiding principle: the need to keep the list of indicators that will form the core of the SDG monitoring framework as manageable as possible.

• The number of indicators at international level will have to be kept at a minimum and the indicators should be mainly outcome indicators.

• By contrast to the MDGs, indicators will indeed be universal, which means that all countries will need to report on them, even though they may sometimes adapt the targets to their particular country situation.

• A key challenge: develop indicators that can be measured in a cost-effective and practical manner by countries. There is a recognition that there are many dimensions of sustainability for which only limited data exist and for which data collection is likely to prove prohibitively expensive.

• The SDG targets related to land and land tenure, such as targets 1.4 (“ensure that all men and women, in particular the poor and vulnerable, have equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to basic services, ownership and control over land and other forms of property...”), 2.3 and 5.a, are among those which are very difficult to capture with existing indicators, while more relevant indicators are at an early stage of development.

• Quantitative vs. qualitative indicators.

Defining indicators

Defining Indicators

SDGs

SDG 1, Target 1.4: By 2030, ensure that all men and women, in particular the poor and the vulnerable, have equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to basic services, ownership and control over land and other forms of property, inheritance, natural resources, appropriate new technology and financial services, including microfinance.

SDG 2, Target 2.3: By 2030, double the agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers, in particular women, indigenous peoples, family farmers, pastoralists and fishers, including through secure and equal access to land, other productive resources and inputs, knowledge, financial services, markets and opportunities for value addition and non-farm employment.

SDG 5, Target 5.a: Undertake reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property, financial services, inheritance and natural resources, in accordance with national laws.

Technical Report UNSC (suggested indicators)

1.4.2. Proportion of adult population with tenure that is legally recognized and documented or perceived as secure, by sex and age group.

2.3.1 Value of agricultural production per hectare (measured in constant USD/hectare, disaggregated for the two lowest quintiles of countries’ farm size distribution, as well as for female-headed smallholder producer households).

5.a. 1. Proportion of adult population owning land, by sex, age and location.

Major challenge: implementation at country level

• National and regional initiatives that will lead to the implementation of the SDGs.

• The Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security

• Inter-American Cadastral Initiative.

Need for joint action

• Ensuring that land governance is duly reflected in the SDGs will require continued collaboration with all involved stakeholders.

• Data systems and related monitoring mechanisms for the implementation of the SDGs need to be developed with special attention to indicators concerning access to land and land use.

We welcome your views on how different stakeholders could be involved in this effort and look forward to an open dialogue for collaboration at national and international level.