Discussing Territorial Protection: Insights Gleaned from the 2025 World Bank Land Conference
### Strengthening Land Governance for a Sustainable Future: The Role of Strategic Partnerships
The significance of strategic partnerships in advancing effective land governance has never been more apparent, as demonstrated by recent initiatives such as the Land for Life program and the World Bank Land Conference 2025. These collaborations play a crucial role in tackling pressing global challenges like climate change and food security.
#### Facilitating Multi-Stakeholder Collaboration
Platforms like the LANDac Annual Conference bring together a diverse range of stakeholders—academia, civil society organisations, policymakers, donors, and practitioners—to share knowledge, coordinate efforts, and align goals. This plurality of knowledge and partnership is essential to successful land governance projects that reflect both local realities and global objectives.
#### Knowledge Management and Adaptive Learning
Strategic partnerships enable the generation, management, dissemination, and adaptive use of knowledge to inform policymaking and implementation. For example, LANDac’s knowledge management program ensures lessons learned from local projects contribute to broader land governance agendas, thus enhancing the impact of interventions at multiple scales.
#### Leveraging Data and Innovation for Sustainable Land Use
Through partnerships, organisations like the FAO provide countries with critical data, tools, and innovation platforms that empower informed decisions around sustainable land management. This improves soil health, climate resilience, and food security, while securing land rights for vulnerable groups such as smallholders, women, and indigenous peoples.
#### Aligning Land Governance with Global Climate and Development Goals
The World Bank Land Conference 2025 emphasised securing land tenure and access as foundational to climate action, poverty reduction, and economic growth. It fosters cross-sectoral dialogue and promotes investment and policy reforms that scale effective land governance and climate adaptation measures, especially supporting Indigenous Peoples and local communities.
#### Promoting Nature-Based Solutions and Ecosystem Resilience
Partnerships help integrate sustainable land and ecosystem management into policies that reduce drought risks and enhance resilience. By combining expertise and resources, governments and partners work to restore ecosystems, improve water retention, and ensure land governance supports biodiversity, climate mitigation, and community livelihoods.
#### Demonstrated Impact Through Land for Life and the World Bank Land Conference
The Land for Life program, co-hosted by Welthungerhilfe, exemplifies how collaborative frameworks involving multiple stakeholders can promote inclusive, sustainable land governance directly addressing food security, ecosystem restoration, and climate resilience by empowering communities and incorporating diverse knowledge systems.
The World Bank Land Conference 2025’s theme, "Securing Land Tenure and Access for Climate Action," illustrates a consensus that land governance is central to global climate strategies. The conference fosters strategic partnerships among governments, donors, civil society, and the private sector to move beyond awareness to actionable investment and policy change in land tenure security—key to enabling climate adaptation and mitigation.
Anna Schreiber, Project Manager for the Land for Life program by Welthungerhilfe, emphasised the importance of these partnerships in advancing people-centered land reforms in Africa. The Land for Life program supports local land rights reforms in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, and Ethiopia.
The conference also highlighted the need for better coordination between governments, donors, and civil society in land governance. Welthungerhilfe continues to push for this coordination, ensuring that land reforms are implemented to safeguard the land access for vulnerable groups, like women and smallholder farmers.
The goal of the partnership side-meeting, co-hosted by WHH, was to identify opportunities for concrete partnerships and collaboration, and discuss how to better coordinate and map land reform initiatives. At the conference, WHH shared their partnership initiative at the Global Donor Working Group on Land (GDWGL).
As the world moves towards a Just Energy Transition, requiring land for renewable energy infrastructure and the mining of raw materials needed for green technologies, the need for effective land governance becomes even more critical. By fostering strategic partnerships and promoting inclusive, people-centered land reforms, organisations like Welthungerhilfe are helping to ensure a sustainable future for all.
[1] LANDac (2021). Knowledge Management Programme. Retrieved from https://www.landac.nl/knowledge-management-programme [2] FAO (2021). Global Soil Partnership. Retrieved from https://www.fao.org/global-soil-partnership/en/ [3] World Bank (2021). World Bank Land Conference 2025. Retrieved from https://www.worldbank.org/en/events/2021/06/01/world-bank-land-conference-2021 [4] UNEP (2021). Nature-based Solutions. Retrieved from https://www.unep.org/naturebasedsolutions/about-nature-based-solutions
- Strategic partnerships between smallholder farmers and development cooperation organizations can help improve food security by promoting sustainable farming practices and access to finance.
- Science and environmental-science research play a crucial role in informing sustainable land governance and food systems, providing data and insights needed for effective policymaking and implementation.
- The cooking and food-and-drink industry can contribute to sustainable living by adopting renewable-energy sources, reducing energy consumption, and sourcing ingredients sustainably.
- Renewable-energy solutions, such as solar panels and wind turbines, can help smallholder farmers become energy-independent and improve their lifestyle by minimizing reliance on expensive, polluting energy sources.
- Entrepreneurship and business opportunities in the renewable-energy sector can provide new income streams for smallholder farmers, helping them to improve their financial situation and job-search prospects.
- By learning new skills-training in areas like sustainable agriculture, renewable-energy, and sustainable-living, smallholder farmers can enhance their personal-growth, career-development, and agricultural productivity.
- Eating global-cuisines made with locally sourced, organic, and sustainable ingredients can support smallholder farmers and promote a sustainable lifestyle, reducing the carbon footprint of food consumption.
- Home-and-garden projects, such as vertical gardens and rainwater-harvesting systems, can help smallholder farmers conserve water, improve the health of their soil, and increase the biodiversity of their surroundings.
- Education-and-self-development programs focused on sustainable-living, environmental-science, and entrepreneurship can empower smallholder farmers to take control of their own development, make informed decisions, and contribute to their communities.
- Smallholder farmers can collaborate with chefs and restaurants in their communities to create environmentally-friendly menus and cooking practices, promoting the importance of sustainable living and food-and-drink choices.
- Sustainable-living choices, like reducing meat consumption, eating more plant-based foods, and minimizing food waste, can help combat climate-change and improve overall food security.
- Through sports-betting and other entertainment industries, partnerships can be established to raise awareness about climate-change, food security, and the importance of sustainable land governance, engaging people in meaningful conversations about these issues.
- The sports industry, by promoting sustainable-living initiatives, such as recycling programs and energy-efficient stadiums, can demonstrate leadership in sustainable practices, inspiring others to make similar choices and contribute to a more sustainable future.
