On March 28th, 2019, the International Land Coalition launched LANDex at the sidelines of the 2019 World Bank Land & Poverty Conference in Washington DC.
LANDex is a tool ILC developed which monitors land governance using 33 indicators centred around the 10 commitments.
Conceived in 2016 under the name “Dashboard” after consultation with ILC members, the platform launched pilots in Senegal, Nepal and Colombia.
At the World Bank meeting, it presented the results at the side event, which attracted around 45 people.
L’Initiative Prospective Agricole et Rurale (IPAR), a think tank, in collaboration with the Senegalese Institute of Agricultural Research (ISRA) and ILC organised a two-day event in Senegal where LANDex activities and PRIndex data was showcased in front of researchers, government representatives and civil society actors. PRIndex is a tool that collects data on perceptions of property rights to help build a wall where everyone feels secure.
Presenting during the workshop, Dr Ward Anseew, a Knowledge, Learning and Innovation / CIRAD Researcher at ILC discussed the history of LANDex. In evaluating how countries performed during the pilot, he saluted Senegal’s effort and good performance in all the indicators except family farming and land rights defenders. This poor performance is explained by the fact that there is limited information around the two indicators.
“The LANDex can also be a decision support tool, with the scores eliciting actions. While positive points show areas and policies that could be judged satisfactory, the red dots will probably need intervention and more focus,” said Dr Ward Anseew. “Positive points should be improved while the red dots need to be dealt with quickly.”
Following Dr Ward's presentation, Quentin Grislain, an ILC Consultant hosted at ISRA and Dr Ibrahima Ka of IPAR discussed how monitoring mechanisms and land observatories could foster land reforms in Africa and presented the first results of LANDex in Senegal, the successes but also the obstacles encountered. Dr Ka further congratulated the government of Senegal for developing the national land policy which will help structure land monitoring.
Cheikh Faye, a researcher at IPAR presented the PRIndex perception data for Senegal. From his talk, participants had some response. For example, one of the feedbacks focused on how PRIndex could adapt the methodology and shed more light on sampling and rural actors.