Information on land in the Caribbean is sparse. It's scattered across journal articles, buried in reports and raised in ad hoc publications, making a comprehensive analysis and interpretation of land data and information difficult for academics and NGOs and even less accessible to grassroots or people's organizations. Being able to define the state of land governance in a country or region and communicate that to the general public is an important step in building a common agenda and understanding between actors in the land community.
To this end, a number of countries in the Caribbean have begun using LANDex, the Global Land Governance Index for people-centred land governance (PCLG) monitoring.
LANDex is a monitoring tool that relies upon standardized indicators that measure progress towards PCLG at the national level.
The tool measures progress on each of ILC's 10 Commitments at three levels: the strength of the legal framework, levels of implementation and the resulting outcome or impact. The indicators rely on different kinds of land information and employ diverse methods, including official census data, global survey data and locally-generated assessments that highlight the diversity of lived experiences of land governance. The index and its indicators are set on a scale of 0-100, but the richness of the data comes in the responses, stories and detail behind these numbers.
Through LANDex, the Caribbean Platform of land actors in Belize, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Trinidad and Tobago are working to establish a baseline for land governance data on certain indicators. In many cases, this has meant identifying data that is not available in their countries. While these countries will work together on specific indicators, all countries will focus on additional indicators that align with national priorities. St. Lucia, for example, is focusing on diverse tenure systems – ILC's Commitment 3 – while other platforms are working on small-scale farming, locally managed ecosystems or inclusive decision making. LANDex allows for monitoring to be customized to meet a country's needs.
As a region, countries will try to establish a cross-country baseline for indicator 1A, a macro-indicator that contains three sub-indicators (3A, 4A and 5A) measuring the strength of the legal framework to provide for diverse tenure rights, women's land rights and indigenous peoples' land rights, respectively, as well as private land rights. Data for this indicator, across all participating countries, will allow for a first regional analysis of the ability of existing legal frameworks to provide for secure tenure rights.
Currently, national platforms in the Caribbean are working closely with the global LANDex team, which has provided training on the tool and ongoing support on how to collect, process and interpret data as they are uploaded into the platform.
Once all data is collected, a regional validation process will be organized, through which all members and relevant partners in the countries involved will be invited to a presentation and discussion of data. After validating the data, members will determine what kind of publications, briefs or products will be developed to best communicate the results to target audiences.
One key moment for dissemination and sharing has already been identified: regional LANDex results for the Caribbean will be presented to urban and land use planners and other stakeholders at the 2022 Caribbean Urban Forum, an annual event organized by Blue Space, Caribbean Network for Urban and Land Management, currently the only ILC member in the Caribbean. The event will take place on 15th-17th of June, 2022, with a focus: Beyond COVID: Recovery, Renewables and Resilience.
The 2022 Caribbean Urban Forum will be a key moment to communicate Caribbean LANDex data and make it visible to planners and decision makers in the hope of creating partnerships and common agendas to better address land governance challenges in the region.