Expert Group Meeting: Land Monitoring and Reporting on National, Regional and Global Commitments

When it comes to good governance one of the main issues to be considered is evidence-based strategies, so that the decisions to be taken on solid ground and to assure the possibility of their implementation. Hence, Rasheed TI-JO has conducted the Expert Group Meeting on Monitoring Land Governance and Tenure Security in the Arab Region, that was held on 14th-15th of July in coordination with UN-Habitat/Global Land Tool Network and International Land Coalition, focusing on the existing database as well as on data collection and reporting on land related indicators.

The debate moved toward a potential regional package for monitoring land governance and tenure security, as it was agreed on the fact that a joint effort is needed in order to overcome challenges in data collection and generation, in addition to reviewing the data availability along with its efficiency and reliability, giving a particular attention on how to use it for reporting at both national and regional levels. 

The discussion on action planning was based on the presentation of a pilot strategy that would facilitate the data collection on land rights through a harmonized questionnaire module meant to be implemented by state authorities that have competencies in statistics. 

Moving forward to the core of the EGM, the group presentations centralized around the main elements to be considered in drawing action plans such as: the data focused on, the land tenure and governance issues that the data is centered on, the opportunities and challenges that might appear based on the national/regional context, the key partners stakeholders would like to work with and the needed support into progressing and adapting the existing tools to each own features.

The end of the EGM sought to offer experts’ views and recommendations on coordination and support mechanisms for monitoring land in the Arab region pointing out the importance of strong collaborations while trying to set a viable way forward.

It is beyond any doubt that the progress on land governance can be achieved only on the grounds of solid principles such as transparency, awareness, data based decisions, accountability and justice. This is not achieved overnight as it was shown that it needs a joint effort, access to data and strong partnerships.

You can download the concept note and the agenda, here below :