Supporting liveable climate sensitive cities through integrated urban land management

In January 2025 I flew to Jakarta and was struck by the seemingly endless spread of the city while enjoying the bird’s eye view – with mass skyscrapers stretching well beyond my little plane window. This glimpse of Jakarta from above gave credence to statistics from the World Bank that between 1980 and 2002, almost one-quarter of the land area of Jakarta was converted from non-urban uses (e.g. agriculture, wetlands) to urban uses for industry, commerce and housing.

Hosted by the Mekong Region Land Governance (MRLG) project – implemented by Land Equity International and GRET – the Forum marked both a culmination of ten years of collaboration and an invitation to chart new trajectories for land, climate, and community resilience across Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam.

On 17th December 2024 around midday, a 7.3 magnitude earthquake struck just 30 km away from Vanuatu’s capital city of Port Vila. No stranger to disasters, the nation has weathered three major cyclones in 2023 alone. But recovery from this impact has felt a little different. 14 people tragically lost their lives, and an estimated 80,000 people were impacted nationally. Some six months on, parts of the CBD still remain closed to the public as the reconstruction effort continues: many roads still require repair and demolition of unsafe buildings is ongoing. And new urban paradigms are emerging, with many businesses relocating ‘to the suburbs’ – with no intent to return. 

The world of land tenure and administration is also constantly evolving, influenced by political change, climate disruption, and technological evolution. Global official development assistance (ODA) fell in 2024 for the first time in five years, dropping by 7.1% as donor countries shifted their priorities inward and scaled back commitments. Although some countries – like Korea, Portugal, and Belgium – increased their contributions, the overall decline highlights an alarming recalibration in donor country priorities. Over the course of 2025, we will need to remain vigilant and flexible as the global development community reacts to these readjusted priorities and the growing questions around the value and effectiveness of bilateral aid.

Thanks Naia.  The acronym VARS stands for the Vanuatu Affordable and Resilient Settlements Project and focuses on both existing settlement upgrades within the town of Port Vila and a new greenfield low-income subdivision that the Vanuatu Government is developing in its capacity as a developer.  Our consultancy team of Kate Fairlie (from LEI), Jennie Day and I are providing policy, legal, marketing and advisory services to support the development of the greenfield subdivision project.

Finance for nature-based solutions is on the upswing. The voluntary carbon market (VCM) and carbon investments have seen remarkable growth, particularly for projects that incentivize protection of forests and other landscapes in carbon-rich regions such as the Mekong, and is projected to mobilize up to US$5 billion annually in the next decade. Yet, like any credible market, the VCM must be inclusive, grounded in an enabling policy environment, and with mutual benefits for people, nature, and climate. But the price of carbon has taken a plunge in recent years (Forest Trends 2024, World Bank 2024) as a result of a host of issues and concerns that are summarized as a lack of environmental and social “integrity.” Though not all forest-based carbon projects have come under scrutiny, they currently command weaker prices than many other sectors, signaling a lack of market confidence.  

In just a few days the World Bank’s newly relaunched Annual Land Conference will commence in Washington DC! The 2024 Conference, which has the theme Securing Land Tenure and Access for Climate Action, aims to highlight effective strategies for securing land tenure and access in support of climate change mitigation and adaption.

National development agendas usually commit to the building of new infrastructure at a significant scale – promising upgraded or new roads, ports, airports, rail and energy infrastructure, housing, or urban development. With these commitments inevitably comes a demand for land. Although the land requirements for such investments will usually be context-specific, we know certain types of investments have enormous land requirements regardless of location. Utility scale solar or wind farms, for example, necessitate large surface areas to produce energy, particularly vis-à-vis traditional energy sources such as coal. Given the finite character of land, and the growing competition for different land uses, public land that is readily available for such investments is in diminishing supply.

LEI has long recognised that progress on gender equality is intimately linked to women’s access and ownership of land. There can be no gender equality if women cannot access shelter and land on an equal footing to men. Further, the evidence is overwhelming that addressing the rights of women to land supports other key development outcomes, including improved child nutrition, strengthened women’s economic agency, reductions in gender-based violence (in some contexts) and action on climate change – especially as it concerns halting deforestation in communally managed areas. In our rapid submission to Australia’s new International Gender Equality Policy, we set out the evidence to support women’s land rights – arguing inter alia, that supporting change in this area implements women’s human rights, while also achieving multiple DFAT international development objectives.

Recent analysis shows Bangladesh is facing its worst electricity crisis since 2013, with 2023 power outages (114 days so far) already exceeding those experienced across the entirety of 2022 (113 days). These outages are caused by a fuel shortage – but record-breaking heatwaves and natural disasters are also having a huge impact on the nation’s energy resilience. Renewable energy will be essential to Bangladesh’s sustainable energy future and the country has established ambitious targets to achieve 30% clean energy capacity by 2030, increasing to 40% by 2041. Whilst this will require significant investment, recent analysis shows that the cost of transitioning is likely to be much lower than current power sector subsidies, which have surged in the wake of the fuel price crisis.