2022 progress towards the SDG land rights commitments

The world is now halfway towards implementing the Sustainable Development Goals. Are governments on track with what they committed to deliver for their people? In 2015 we celebrated the recognition of the foundational and strategic role that secure land rights for all – women and men, regardless of ethnicity, religion, place of residence, or civil, economic, social, or political status — must play to achieve a world free of poverty, hunger, and systemic gender discrimination.

Yet Member States’ ambitious commitments have not been followed with the necessary actions on the ground.

Our previous reviews of the 2020 Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs) found promising steps: some countries had localized these commitments into their national plans, allocated new resources, or advanced ambitious reforms. However, the majority had not prioritized land rights in their development agendas or undertaken significant action – casting serious doubts on their ability to achieve the 2030 agenda. As Member States reconvene for the 2023 High Level Political Forum, we conducted a follow-up review on progress made on the SDG land rights targets.This brief will focus on the many important questions related to land rights:

• What can we learn from the information submitted through the SDG reporting mechanisms in 2022?
• What have countries done to address their ambitious but critical cross-cutting commitments to ensure secure land rights for all, particularly for those who live on and from the land facing poverty, the vulnerable and the small producers.
• What are countries doing to eradicate gender differences in these rights?

This assessment is particularly timely given that the 2022 High Level Political Forum reviewed progress towards SDG goal 5 on gender equality, which along with goals 1 and 2, is the third SDG goal which explicitly refer to land access and tenure rights.