Events

World Bank Land Conference 2024:
Securing Land Tenure and Access for Climate Action

May 13-17, 2024

Washington, DC

For over two decades, the World Bank Land Conference has catalyzed the global land community.

The Conference is the premier forum for the land sector, bringing together participants from governments, development partners, civil society, academia, and the private sector to showcase good practice, discuss issues, and inform evidence-based policy dialogue. The Conference encourages cross-sectoral knowledge exchange and has incubated numerous investments, initiatives, and research projects led by diverse stakeholders, including the Voluntary Guidelines, the Sustainable Development Goal on Secure Land Tenure, the Land Governance Assessment Framework, and the Stand for Her Land Campaign.

The 2024 World Bank Land Conference was held on May 13-17, 2024 in Washington, DC. The Land Conference aimed to:

Direct and inform investments in the land sector.
Facilitate and advance multi-stakeholder dialogues and collaboration.
Advocate for evidence-driven policymaking.
Share knowledge on emerging best practices and innovative research.

OVERVIEW
Agenda
subThemes

The theme of the 2024 Conference was "Securing Land Tenure and Access for Climate Action." While land tenure and governance underpin climate change adaptation and mitigation, their foundational role is often overlooked. Insecure or unregistered land tenure undermines the ability and interest of landholders to invest in climate change adaptation and mitigation, including by limiting their access to climate finance and reducing their incentives to adopt sustainable land management practices. Poor land governance—including unclear or overlapping laws and institutions for administering land rights and managing land use trade-offs—limits land access for mitigation, adaptation, and disaster risk management investments. Competition for land and its resources will require strategic decisions on how much land is used, for what purpose, and by whom. These trade-offs will only become more complex to manage over time, since land resources suitable for productive uses are expected to become scarcer as urbanization accelerates and climate impacts become more severe.
The 2024 Conference therefore aimed to highlight effective strategies for securing land tenure and access in support of climate change mitigation and adaption.
The Conference included a range of events organized by the World Bank, development partners, civil society, and other partners, including high-level opening and closing sessions, Thematic Sessions, Research Sessions, Regional Operational Workshops, Global Land Initiatives, and an innovations expo in person and online.
Opening and Closing Sessions: These featured high-level external and internal speakers to motivate multistakeholder and multisectoral global action in the land sector around securing land tenure and access for climate action.
Thematic Sessions: Four parallel forums of 90 minutes each showcased effective strategies and best practices to address key issues under land for climate action. The 2024 thematic sessions focused on the following subthemes: Securing Tenure for Sustainability, Land Technologies for Green Growth, Land Administration for Climate Action and Disaster Resilience, Land Administration Amid Rapid Urbanization.
Regional Operational Workshops: An in-depth exploration of regional technical lessons, challenges, and emerging innovations. Organized by the World Bank in collaboration with partners, they were dedicated to facilitating South-South knowledge exchange.
Global Land Initiative Sessions: Sessions to further global land policy initiatives and advance the global land agenda. These included a mix of invitation-only or open sessions, varying in duration from two to eight hours.
Solutions Expo: A multi-stakeholder booth exhibition to present land solutions and initiatives, which took place face-to-face in the World Bank Atrium as well as online.
For more information, review the full 2024 Land Conference agenda (.pdf).

Last Updated: Sep 26, 2024
The 2024 thematic sessions focused on subthemes related to improving land governance and tenure amid rapid land use change and competing demands for land:
Securing Tenure for Sustainability: This segment emphasized the pivotal role of strengthened land tenure in achieving sustainability goals. Discussions revolved around strategies for securing rights to rural lands, institutional reforms, and managing varied land administration mandates across multiple agencies.
Land Technologies for Green Growth: This track featured innovative technologies and tools for leveraging land for low-carbon urban growth, such as mass land valuation, multi-purpose cadasters, digital land information systems, and national spatial data infrastructure.
Land Administration for Climate Action and Disaster Resilience: This track presented qualitative and quantitative analysis of the ways that land administration both affects and is impacted by climate change and DRM, including case studies on the implications of poor land management and administration for disaster vulnerability and on managing land access for climate actions and commitments, such as afforestation, mitigating deforestation, and clean energy.
Land Administration Amid Rapid Urbanization: This section featured innovative approaches that optimize urban land administration. It spotlit strategies to safeguard public and private land rights, enhance land availability for urban uses, and refine urban planning and development techniques.
Gender and youth were cross cutting themes across all tracks. Panels and papers were expected to address relevant gendered/youth impacts and highlight operational innovations to ensure women and youth benefit from land-related investments and policies.

CONFERENCE DETAILS

DATE: May 13-17, 2024
VENUE: 1818 H Street, NW Washington, DC 20433
SPONSORSHIP & BOOTH EXHIBITION: Contact Land Conference Team
CONTACT: landconf@worldbank.org

MEDIA CONTACT

Laura Ivers
Media Contact

laivers@worldbankgroup.org

World Bank Land Conference 2024: Securing Land Tenure and Access for Climate Action