Learn more about the Global Land Governance Index - why land matters, the rational behind the tool and its structure.

Equitable land rights are the key to progress on human rights, flourishing and healthy societies, and a sustainable planet. They are central to the most urgent challenge of our time: avoiding catastrophic climate breakdown. Equitable land rights also mean peaceful and democratic societies, sustainable and resilient local food systems, and overcoming growing inequality – particularly gender inequality. Right now, too much land is controlled, managed and used by too few in ways which just don’t work for the vast majority of people, or the planet. This is particularly true for people living on and from the land. By that we mean the women, youth, family and peasant farmers, indigenous peoples, pastoralists, forest dwellers, hunter-gatherers, fisherfolks, afro-descendants and local communities for whom we collectively work. These are the voices that must be the loudest in decision-making spaces, particularly over their land. Yet, they are often marginalised, and in many countries face narrowing civic space and democratic process.

LANDex is a global land governance index that aims to put people at the centre of land data, democratising land monitoring and building a data ecosystem that better captures the complex experience of land governance from diverse perspectives.

Built in consultation with members and strategic partners of the International Land Coalition (ILC), LANDex is based on common people-centered indicators and methodologies, giving a platform to the individuals and communities often absent in official numbers. Organised around ILC’s 10 thematic commitments, the Global Land Governance Index measures progress towards people-centred land governance (PCLG) on three levels: the legal framework, implementation and outcome or impact. In addition, standardised LANDex indicators allow members to generate globally comparable data and contribute to the monitoring of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure (VGGTs), among others.

All LANDex indicators are set on a 0-100 scale, with 100 being the most desirable score. A high score reflects the extent to which a country has fulfilled the criteria set forth by the indicator, whether it is an ideal proportion or provisions of law or expected rates of inclusion, among others. The scores allow for simplified comparison across indicators, commitments and countries, but are meant as an entry point to understand how countries are progressing towards people-centred land governance. Over time, these scores can indicate improvements or regressions.

The ILC Roadmap for Implementation of the ILC Strategy 2016-2021 clearly states the need for a tool that would enable country platforms to capture the shifting status of land governance with respect to the 10 Commitments of People-Centred Land Governance (PCLG).

The Global Land Governance Index LANDex was conceptualised in 2016, when the ILC strategy called for a tool that would allow Coalition members to monitor the shifting nature of land governance. At the time, demand for such a tool considered various relevant elements.

There were a number of emerging land governance and rights-oriented frameworks for which ILC had declared its support, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure (VGGTs) and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). More recently, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KM-GBF) and the Escazú Agreement, were added to this list.

An initial scoping exercise identified a large number of indicators used for land monitoring within the Coalition. In order to reduce fragmentation and amplify ongoing efforts, a common tool should reflect existing indicators, methodologies and monitoring initiatives and streamline data collection across a diverse membership by elevating good practices and making them replicable. By building a land governance monitoring tool around ILC’s 10 Commitments to People-Centred Land Governance (PCLG) as a guide, members could focus on aspects of land governance central to their work. Land monitoring facilitated by the tool could be tailored to member needs and priorities.

Furthermore, the tool could be used by members in response to a growing need to collect and use participatory data on land, a type of data seldom included in official data processes. Such data would improve the visibility of people’s organisations, communities, groups and individuals at the core of ILC’s work, engaging them in monitoring the implementation of major land governance and rights-oriented frameworks that impact their environment, livelihoods and wellbeing.

Finally, it was envisioned that such a tool should be visually appealing and accessible, available online and in downloadable formats for anyone who wanted to use it or contribute data. The results, likewise, would be made available to the general public and used by ILC members for evidence-based advocacy and to tell their own stories.

BUILDING THE TOOL

With the primary objective of reducing fragmentation among existing land monitoring initiatives, the development of LANDex began with a scoping exercise to determine which indicators in use by ILC members. This first mapping identified more than 250 indicators, which were organised according to ILC’s 10 Commitments to People-Centred Land Governance, common themes and indicator level and types, what they measured and with which methodology. A shortlist of indicators was presented for consultation at regional and global levels in 2017 and 2018, during which members and strategic partners were asked to identify priority indicators in their regions. In addition, for each indicator, they were asked to identify methodologies and data source per indicator, as well as the ideal scale for data collection and possible routes for implementation.

A HUMAN RIGHTS BASED APPROACH

Indicators and questions included in LANDex have been developed based on human rights principles and norms to emphasise the promotion and protection of human rights as fundamental to the realisation of people-centred land governance. As such, indicators that were clustered around the 10 thematic commitments of ILC were further organised according to the three-level structure proposed by human rights indicators: structural, process and outcome indicators. As a conceptual framework, this anchors indicators in human rights and conventions. Even where a human right has not been explicitly established – a right to land, for example – the first level indicator would establish to what extent laws, policies and an institutional framework at the national level provide for the realisation of one of the ILC’s 10 Commitments. Wherever relevant, commitments to international human rights treaties were also evaluated at this first level. For LANDex, these were considered A-level or legal indicators. At the second level, structural indicators measure commitment to make legal standards a reality. LANDex considers these B-level or implementation indicators. The third level are outcome indicators, which LANDex considers C-level or results and perception indicators. These indicators capture individual and collective results, reflecting the enjoyment of those rights established at the legal indicator level in practice.

METHODOLOGIES

The methodologies employed by LANDex are determined by the selected indicators and the information needed. The methodologies describe how information or data should be collected, indicating where to source data for each indicator. All LANDex indicators are set on a 0-100 scale – where 100 is the most desirable outcome – which makes it possible to aggregate scores at the indicator, commitment, country and global level. All LANDex indicators use one of three types of methodologies:

• People-based indicators: Guided assessments in the form of structured questionnaires on a specific theme. More than half – 18 of 33 – indicators in LANDex rely fully or partially on people-based assessments, proven to be a fundamental means of gathering perceptions and lived experiences of land governance from target groups. This kind of data collection is effective for collecting qualitative data such as opinions, attitudes, political and social beliefs, as well as rates of satisfaction or perceptions of inclusion. These indicators include a series of questions that respondents answer to assess progress towards a subjective topic or subject. Finally, in order to ensure the quality of the data that deals with questions about the legal framework, 10 of these 18 indicators will rely on assessments completed by designated legal experts.
• Numerical or calculation indicators: These are indicators based on existing, quantitative data. For these indicators, members identify specific data points to calculate the indicator score, for example, the number of hectares claimed by Indigenous Peoples in a country and how many of those have been recognized. These indicators use secondary data, both from official sources and third-party data collectors. While many of the calculation indicators list likely sources of data – national census or survey data, for example – there is no specific data source required, so long as the data provided is compatible.
• Global data initiatives indicators: Indicators where the source of data has been predetermined, either because there is no other viable source of data or because the source is a known data collector with good coverage on an issue that is of central importance to the index, such as the indicators on perception of tenure security among rural populations based on Prindex data, as well as the indicator for corruption in the land sector based on data collected by Transparency International. This also includes a unique integrated database indicator led by the ALLIED data working group – and counts the total number of verified attacks against Indigenous, land and environmental defenders attacked in a country over the previous 12 months. Indicator 10C, with information pooled from multiple sources, has not been integrated into LANDex index calculations to avoid giving the false impression that any amount of documented violence against these defenders is acceptable.