Contribute to evidence-based decision-making in the land sector and other global development spaces through rigorous and collaborative research and learning.
Secure land rights for all are increasingly recognized as foundational to a world that is sustainable, without poverty or hunger, where women and men have equal opportunities, and where nobody is left behind. Yet, today, gaps in evidence and data hamper governments’ ability to fulfill their commitments, civil society’s ability to promote communities’ interests, corporations’ ability to invest responsibly, and funders’ investment in a sector seen as risky, complex, and generating gradual, indirect impacts.
Through research, technical support, and advocacy, Landesa is building evidence and data that enable a nuanced, intersectional understanding of land rights and uses and how they can improve livelihoods, governance, and women’s empowerment, and of what interventions work, where, how, and for whom.
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Landesa narrows critical evidence gaps in the land sector with our collaborative, participatory research and clear communication of our evaluation findings, so communities, civil society, companies, and governments can cultivate profound impact.
Landesa's team of expert social scientists use robust and inclusive social science research methodologies that emphasize contextually appropriate participatory, qualitative and quantitative approaches to ensure success of our programs and understand their impacts on people and landscapes.
Worldwide, data on who holds secure land tenure is missing—and even more so for women and other marginalized groups. Landesa works with global leaders, national governments, and civil society to improve data collection and data use to close this gap and to make women’s land tenure more visible.
The Security for Girls Through Land Project (Girls Project) aimed to empower and reduce vulnerabilities of adolescent girls in West Bengal, India, by engaging both girls and boys in land-based livelihood and land rights trainings, in partnership with the state government. Landesa employed a robust monitoring and evaluation framework to enable effective monitoring of government implementation, trigger course-correction where needed, regularly hear project participants’ perspectives on outcomes during implementation, and evaluate impacts of the pilot by a baseline to endline comparison.
