Collaborative Pathways to Benchmarking the State of Land Data and Information
Land Portal Foundation
The objective is to develop and launch the State of Land Information Index (SOLIndex) as a benchmark and diagnostic tool, tracking the completeness and openness of land data globally. The SOLIndex aims to increase the availability of land information at the country level. Access to comprehensive information on land administration is a fundamental right, crucial for achieving good land governance, but is also a critical enabler of other human rights, ensuring transparency, accountability and equitable development, and is core to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The SOLIndex improves transparency and provides a diagnostic tool for policymakers, land data custodians, researchers, and practitioners that explores the openness of land data at the global and national level. The rapid pace of technological development risks increasing the data and information deficits globally, further entrenching inequality. Thus the increasing importance of a global assessment on the state of land information.
Globally access to land data and information is uneven across countries, but is generally limited. Despite the increasing emphasis on data transparency and ongoing improvements, much of the data and information for land administration is still inaccessible. The lack of data and information on land continues to frustrate efforts to document property rights and ensure equitable access to land for all, hindering economic development and limiting agricultural productivity. Corruption, elite land capture, land grabbing and opaque land transactions are byproducts of a lack of data and information on land administration. Environmental degradation and mitigation for climate change cannot be efficiently addressed without reliable and broad access to land data and information. Without the ability to govern land and associated resources effectively, society remains vulnerable to social upheaval stemming from growing inequality and climate induced change, while undermining the achievement of the sustainable development goals.
The SOLIndex assesses the completeness and openness of land data by describing the availability of public sector information and evaluating it to provide globally comparable indicators. The SOLIndex examines key questions such as how much land data is online, accessible, free, updated timely, accompanied by metadata, uses standards, downloadable, openly licensed, machine-readable, and available as linked data. An interactive data dashboard is being developed to analyse and visualise the state of land data and information. It should provide five points of entry for exploring the state of land data:
- Big-picture global score.
- Close look at country diagnostics
- Deep dive into individual open criteria
- Mix & match exploration/download
- Dee-diving by category of land data
Key Activities:
- Develop, refine and test the methodology for data collection covering the land governance data across 4 key land administration activities (land tenure, land use, land development land value) as well as on land legislation and policies.
- Collect data for 42 countries in the pilot phase during 2024 (priority countries are Latin America and Africa).
- Develop, test and publish an online interactive data analysis and visualisation dashboard.
- Expand to 100 countries by 2025
Outcomes:
Comprehensive Land Data Openness: Deliver a comprehensive global assessment of land data openness, supporting informed decision-making, promoting transparency, and enabling targeted actions to improve data accessibility and interoperability at the country level.
Collaborative Action: SOLIndex will complement and support the development of a more comprehensive suite of existing global land data indicators, including, but not limited to, those from Land Matrix, Global Data Barometer, Prindex, and LANDex.
Internal monitoring and evaluation framework.
Periodic Reporting to UNWDF