The 10th India Land and Development Conference (ILDC) will take place from November 17–19, 2026, at XIM University in Bhubaneswar, India. The theme for this year’s conference is “Bridging the Gap: From Promise to Practice.”
The conference will focus on one of the central challenges in land governance: the gap between policies, commitments, technologies, and rights frameworks on paper and the way they work in practice. ILDC 2026 will examine how land governance systems can become more credible, accessible, inclusive, and responsive to the realities of people and communities.
The program will bring together government representatives, civil society organizations, researchers, international agencies, private-sector actors, and grassroots leaders to exchange evidence and experience on land governance, policy, and development. Discussions will span rural, urban, forest, and peri-urban contexts and will include issues related to land administration, climate action, community rights, digital systems, natural resources, and inclusive development.
Cross-cutting themes include gender, pastoralism, localization, Indigenous Peoples and local communities, and inclusive growth. The conference will also explore how land governance can respond to competing demands linked to climate action, biodiversity protection, infrastructure, urbanization, and investment while recognizing rights, local knowledge, and existing tenure systems.
Since its first edition in 2017, ILDC has developed into a major multi-stakeholder forum on land governance. According to the organizers, the conference has engaged more than 3,500 participants from over 70 countries, worked with more than 200 institutions, and hosted more than 400 sessions.
COP17 is expected to bring together delegates from UNCCD’s 197 Parties, alongside leaders from government, business and civil society, as well as scientists, youth, Indigenous Peoples, pastoralists and smallholder farmers. They will convene to forge solutions to the interconnected challenges of desertification, land degradation and drought, recognizing that restoring land is also essential to reducing instability, preventing displacement and strengthening human and national security in vulnerable regions.
“Land is our most vital infrastructure — underpinning food security, water, livelihoods and stability. When land fails, insecurity rises — through lost livelihoods, forced displacement and increased competition over scarce resources. With UNCCD COP17, Mongolia is offering the world a powerful message: Restoring Land, Restoring Hope is not only an environmental agenda, but a development and resilience priority. As drought intensifies and land degradation accelerates, the conference must drive practical, investable solutions — from restoring degraded land and soils to strengthening the land–water nexus — so that communities can thrive,” said UNCCD Executive Secretary Yasmine Fouad.
Land degradation is already affecting up to 40 per cent of the world’s land, with far-reaching impacts on food production, water availability, livelihoods and economic stability. COP17 offers a pivotal moment for countries and partners to strengthen implementation and mobilize greater investment in drought resilience and sustainable land management.
With a vast territory of 1.56 million square kilometers, Mongolia is among the countries most affected by desertification and land degradation, with nearly 77 per cent of its land already degraded. Hosting UNCCD COP17 in Ulaanbaatar will place international focus on land restoration priorities, including approaches that safeguard livelihoods, food security and ecosystems in dryland regions.
COP17 is taking place during the United Nations International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists (IYRP 2026(, declared by the United Nations General Assembly and championed by Mongolia. This presents a major opportunity to accelerate action on the sustainable management, restoration and conservation of rangelands, while spotlighting the needs of pastoralist communities who depend directly on these ecosystems for their livelihoods.
Rangelands cover more than half of the Earth’s land surface, support the direct livelihoods of around 500 million people and provide one-sixth of the world’s nutrition needs, yet remain among the planet’s most overlooked and increasingly degraded ecosystems.
During the two-week conference, participants will engage in a high-level segment including ministerial dialogues, alongside multistakeholder forums and thematic discussions on science–policy integration, innovation and solutions, tools and technologies, and financing. In addition to formal negotiations, COP17 is expected to catalyze collective action on rangelands, resilience and water, as well as food systems and soil health.
In preparation for COP17, Mongolia has launched national initiatives linking land restoration with livelihoods and rural development, including the President-led “Billion Trees” National Campaign, initiated in 2021 and aiming to plant one billion trees by 2030. Mongolia has also expanded public engagement and youth participation through national dialogues and outreach activities, including the “Youth4Land” National Forum. Through the Mongolia Business Council, the COP17 Presidency has been engaging the country’s private sector in support of UNCCD’s Business4Land Initiative that aims to accelerate private sector action for sustainable land management.
In March 2026, RRI launched Moving Rights Forward, a collection of 8 case studies sharing unique insights into the lived realities of pastoralists and Mobile Peoples in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The analysis reveals the extent to which legal barriers persist in the recognition of their rights. On August 11, we’re turning research into action.
Join us for Tenure on the Move, where RRI, CAOI, ILEPA, MPIDO, and SWB will launch a legal guide on pastoralists’ and Mobile Peoples’ rights.
This webinar will provide an overview of the status of recognition of their rights and share direct policy and legal reform recommendations to influence national and global agendas at the upcoming UNCCD COP17 in Mongolia and beyond.
In 2026 the LANDac annual conference is centered on the theme of Land, Conflict and Peace. This conference offers the opportunity to explore issues at the crossroads of land governance and peace, conflict, and humanitarian studies. It invites reflection on how war and its aftermath reshape our understanding of land governance and call for new, context-sensitive approaches. Such reflection is more urgent than ever: today, around 50 countries of the world are experiencing war or organized violence, affecting roughly one in six people worldwide. In the current context of myriad global and local conflicts, this important theme aims to encourage rich discussion between participants from academia, practitioners, and policy makers.
The relationship between land and conflict, and the ways in which conflict redefines land access and rights, are common themes for practitioners working in land governance, and have also been explored in academic debates across a number of fields. Both research and practice have increasingly linked underlying dynamics of structural (in)justice around land to conflict, and the topic remains as relevant as ever: new findings continue to emerge, while evolving factors such as climate change further complicate the relationships between people, land, and conflict. Political and economic exclusion are central to conflicts, and these can often manifest through claims to land. In turn, conflict can engender loss of land, due to displacement, land grabbing, and militarisation. The aftermath of war can equally be a time of land loss, or of frustrated efforts to regain land lost in conflict. While war-to-peace transitions can bring the hope to correct some of these wrongs, they also bring new problems, such as through overlapping land claims, land grabbing in the name of development and reconstruction, and continued political competition. Moreover, experience shows that if not addressed in emergency response and post-recovery efforts, land issues can contribute to exacerbate or relapse of conflicts.
This year’s LANDac Conference turns its attention to these intersections. Key questions that motivate the conference are: How can different land governance approaches strengthen land rights in conflict-affected and challenging environments? How can land governance interventions support recovery, peacebuilding, and justice? And how can we better understand land governance as part of the broader politics of land before, during, and after violent conflict?
This conference offers the opportunity to explore the crossroads of land governance with peace and conflict studies. It invites reflection on how war and its aftermath reshape our understanding of land governance. Such reflection is more urgent than ever: today, around 50 countries of the world are experiencing war or organised violence, affecting roughly one in six people worldwide. If current trends continue, two thirds of the world’s poor will live in conflict-affected or fragile countries by 2030.
To reflect on these challenges, this conference aims to bring together scholars, policy makers and practitioners from the land governance field on the one hand; and the conflict, peace, and humanitarian field on the other. We believe these two communities can speak to each other in very meaningful ways. Early work on land in humanitarian and peace building contexts (by Sara Pantuliano in 2009 and John Unruh in 2013) has put these issues on the agenda, and experiences from different war-affected countries indicate the complexity of land governance interventions in these settings, technically, legally, and politically.
Among the peace and conflict community, land remains somewhat underacknowledged as a critical theme. Here, the land governance community may help put urgent issues of injustice as well as structural violence relating to land on the international peacebuilding agenda. Precisely in situations of threatening violence, a pertinent question is what can be done through land governance. Vice-versa, the land governance community stands to benefit from insights and theory-building on key issues in conflict dynamics, including the mobilisation for violence, the role of identity politics, and the dynamics of state formation; but also what it takes to think of peace in terms of transformation and justice.
Format
The 2-day conference kick-offs on Wednesday morning 1 July with a plenary session. Dr Jon Unruh will open with a keynote on land rights, conflict and peace building. After Prof Unruh’s framing on the conference theme, a plenary conversation will explore what it means to operate in today’s complex environments at the intersection of land governance, conflict, peace, and humanitarian action. Four panelists come together to share the lived realities behind their work. Each arrives with a different vantage point, from government decision‑making to frontline programming, from navigating activism and political pressures to conducting research in places where conflict is not an abstraction. This session opens a space for honest, thought‑provoking conversation, bringing forward both institutional and personal perspectives on how to address the root causes of emerging crises through policy, programming, and long‑term engagement in an aid landscape that is constantly shifting.
The plenary morning is followed by several rounds of parallel sessions in 1,5 hour slots on Wednesday and Thursday 2 July. The conference closes on Thursday afternoon with a second plenary panel. As in previous editions of the conference, we offer space for a variety of formats: paper presentations, panel discussions, round tables for these two days. On 1 July we will close the day with drinks and snacks, offering ample opportunities for networking.
Following the conference, on 3 July, we host a pre-event for early career researchers, providing space for PhDs and MSc students to share their knowledge, think about how to present this knowledge to other stakeholders, and to inspire each other.
The conference will be concentrated on-site, at Janskerkhof 2-3 Utrecht. We aim to stream keynote sessions. Parallel sessions will be hosted in hybrid format, allowing online presentation (no online participation without presentation).
Keynote speakers
LANDac is proud to announce the following keynote speakers.
Jon Unruh
Dr. Jon Unruh, is a professor at McGill University in Canada. He has over 30 years experience in developing and implementing research, policy and practice on 1) war-affected housing, land and property rights systems; 2) the peace process and recovery from armed conflict; 3) the intersection between customary and statutory tenure; and 4) land rights and environmental change, and has published widely on these topics. He has worked with a variety of international agencies, governments and donors on the establishment of restitution/compensation programmes for housing, land and property in war-affected countries, including: UN agencies, NATO, The World Bank, OSCE, USAID, Global Affairs Canada and and The Japanese Global Infrastructure Foundation, among others. Dr. Unruh has conducted in-person research and policy work in: Ukraine, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Cameroon, Mozambique, Angola, Madagascar, Colombia, Peru, Slovenia, Vietnam, East Timor and Sri Lanka. https://www.mcgill.ca/geography/people-0/unruh
Opening Panel Conversation
Ms Wampie Libon– van der Wal is Director Inclusive Green Growth Department (IGG), Ambassador for Sustainable Development, and Arctic Ambassador at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands. Her directorate coordinates international climate and energy policy, and it manages a portfolio of ODA activities on water, energy and food. Prior to this position, she was the Director of the International Enterprise Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Head of the Economic and Climate Policy Department of the Netherlands Embassy in Washington DC. From 2014-2018, she was Deputy Head of Mission of the Embassy in Belgium. She also worked five years as an European advisor to Prime Ministers Balkenende and Rutte. Starting her diplomatic career in 1997, she held various positions in The Hague, New York and at the Permanent Representation of the Netherlands at the EU in Brussels.
Dr JudithVerweijen – Researcher and Assistant Professor at Utrecht University
Dr Mohammed Alsalimiya – Public Relationship Director at Land Research Center (Palestine)
Mr Michael Servaes – Executive Director of Oxfam Novib
Closing panel
Pinar Dinç
Pinar Dinç is Associate Professor at Lund University, Centre for Advanced Middle Eastern Studies. She is a political scientist specialising in environmental peace and conflict studies, with a particular focus on the interplay between political power, climate and environmental change, ecological degradation, authoritarianism, resistance, and migration in the Middle East.
Mediebou Chindji
Prof. Mediebou Chindji is Associate Professor in Social and Development Geography at the University of Yaoundé I (Cameroon), where she coordinates the Master’s program in Urban Planning and Development. She is also affiliated with the Network of Excellence on Land Governance in central Africa (NELGA/AC). Her research focuses on land governance, spatial justice, and urban transformations in Sub-Saharan Africa, with particular attention to conflict-affected and fragile contexts. She examines how land tenure systems, legal pluralism, and urban expansion shape socio-spatial inequalities and fuel land-related conflicts. Her recent work explores the role of land governance in post-conflict reconstruction, displacement dynamics, and peacebuilding processes, highlighting the need for inclusive and context-sensitive policy frameworks. She has published widely on land, urban vulnerability, and environmental risks, and actively contributes to international debates on land governance, conflict, and sustainable development.
Don’t miss the second annual Local Capacity Strengthening (LCS) Policy Learning and Feedback Forum, which will take place virtually over six days between Tuesday, October 1 and Thursday, October 10.The Forum will collect candid feedback from partners on the Local Capacity Strengthening Policy’s implementation and guide future implementation. View the full schedule and register here. All public sessions will include live simultaneous translation into Kiswahili, Arabic, French, Spanish, and interpretation in ASL. Sessions will be recorded and posted on the USAID website after the event.
Please note the sector-specific session on Resilience, Environment, and Food Security on Wednesday October 2nd at 9am ET. Register for the REFS session here. This session is designed for development practitioners working to promote equitable and inclusive land and resource governance for all. The inaugural LCS Forum held in 2023 brought 1,770 participants from 108 countries together to share good practices and lessons learned. Building on last year’s success, participants will gain a better understanding of how locally-led development is contributing to strengthening land tenure and property rights worldwide. For questions, e-mail LCSPolicyComments@usaid.gov.
The World Bank Land Conference has become one of the largest international events on land governance. It brings together over 1,500 participants from across the globe – including representatives from government, academia, civil society, and the private sector – to discuss new research, innovations, practices, and policies to strengthen land and resource governance.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) leads global engagement on land and resource governance through its expertise in advancing land tenure and property rights, programming to secure inclusive and equitable rights to land and natural resources for women and Indigenous Peoples, and addressing development challenges associated with critical minerals.
Stop by our booth for our new conference handouts:
Join USAID for a series of “Coffee Talks” at our booth on Tuesday, May 14 to learn more about our work!
Monday, May 13
Global Land Governance and Policy Forum, State of Land (1:00p – 1:45p EDT, Preston)
Karol Boudreaux, Senior Land and Resource Governance Advisor, USAID/Washington
Ensuring that the Greening Economy is Just for the Land Holders (3:30p – 5:30p EDT, MC 2-800)
Tuesday, May 14
Join members from USAID’s Land and Resource Governance Division for a series of Coffee Talks at the USAID booth! (10a – 5p EDT, USAID Booth in Atrium)
Do Institutional Design and State Capacity Affect Demand for Property Title? (10:30a – 12:30p EDT, MC 8-100)
Yuliya Panfil, Land and Resource Governance Lead on USAID’s Integrated Natural Resource Management Activity
Integrated Land Policy Implementation – Cross Ministerial Coordination and Barriers to Securing Land Rights for Development (11:00a – 12:30p EDT, MC 4-800)
Matt Sommerville, Land and Resource Governance Specialist on USAID’s Integrated Land and Resource Governance II Activity
Unlocking Community Resilience: An Integrated Approach to Climate Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction (11:00a – 12:30p EDT, MC 2-800)
Karol Boudreaux, Senior Land and Resource Governance Advisor, USAID/Washington
Wednesday, May 15
Customary and Statutory Land Administration Challenges in the Era of Climate Change: Voices from the Grassroots (11:00a – 12:30p EDT, MC 2-800)
Mark Freudenberger, Land and Resource Governance Specialist on USAID’s Integrated Land and Resource Governance II Activity
Innovative Approaches to Unlock Rural and Indigenous Women’s Land Rights for Sustainable Development (4:00p – 5:30p EDT, Preston)
Thais Bessa, Senior Gender and Social Inclusion Advisor on USAID’s Integrated Land and Resource Governance II Activity
Karol Boudreaux, Senior Land and Resource Governance Advisor, USAID/Washington
Securing Women’s Land Rights for a More Livable Planet (2:00p – 3:45p EDT, MC 2-800)
Karol Boudreaux, Senior Land and Resource Governance Advisor, USAID/Washington
Coffee Talks on Tuesday, May 14
If you are attending the Conference, you can connect with USAID at our booth in the World Bank’s Wolfensohn Atrium. On Tuesday, May 14, we will host a series of “Coffee Talks” with LRG Division staff where you can ask your questions, learn about our work, and tell us about yours. Here’s the schedule:
One year after the launch of the Local Capacity Strengthening (LCS) Policy, USAID is excited to host the first annual Learning and Feedback Forum, which will take place virtually over six days between Tuesday, October 10, 2023 and Thursday, October 19, 2023. The Forum will help inform the direction of Policy implementation for the coming year and consists of 11 virtual one-hour sessions that are open to the public and USAID staff. View the full schedule and register here. Note the sector-specific session on Resilience, Environment, and Food Security on October 12 at 9 a.m. ET. Participants will have the opportunity to join constructive and transparent policy implementation discussions about how the LCS Policy is (or is not) affecting locally-led development in land and resource governance. Additionally, participants will learn about evidence-based guidance and resources to help ensure locally-led development is contributing to strengthening land tenure and property rights worldwide. For questions, e-mail LCSPolicyComments@usaid.gov.
Impact evaluations are critical for understanding whether program and policy interventions are working, why, and for whom. In recent years, the land sector has made significant progress in using impact evaluations to build the evidence base for land tenure programs and improve policy and program effectiveness.
Please join us for a virtual convening, hosted by the Global Donor Working Group on Land, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, USAID, the World Bank, and New America, to discuss the policy and programming implications from the last decade of land impact evaluations.
We will bring together researchers and evaluators, policymakers, practitioners, and donors to discuss the implications of these impact evaluations on land tenure programs and policies, and identify open questions and data gaps that, if answered, could improve our understanding of what works, why, and for whom.
Impact evaluations are critical for understanding whether program and policy interventions are working, why, and for whom. In recent years, the land sector has made significant progress in using impact evaluations to build the evidence base for land tenure programs and improve policy and program effectiveness.
Please join us for a virtual convening, hosted by the Global Donor Working Group on Land, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, USAID, the World Bank, and New America, to discuss the policy and programming implications from the last decade of land impact evaluations.
We will bring together researchers and evaluators, policymakers, practitioners, and donors to discuss the implications of these impact evaluations on land tenure programs and policies, and identify open questions and data gaps that, if answered, could improve our understanding of what works, why, and for whom.
The USAID Integrated Land and Resource Governance (ILRG) Annual Research Symposium will showcase academic research and field experience in Zambia related to land tenure and natural resource management over the course of four weeks (Wednesdays and Thursdays from 13:00 – 15:00 CAT). The presentations with Q & A will be entirely virtual through the Zoom platform (assistance with Internet connection is available.)
Registration
Registration for the symposium is now open. Registration is not required to view the symposium but is requested in order to participate in the discussion.
Agenda
Each week 4-5 presentations + discussion will focus on the following thematic issues:
6 October: Opening and Government Context on Land and Resource Policy in Zambia
7-8 October: State and Customary Land Governance
14-15 October: Land Documentation and Administration
21-22 October: Natural Resource Management
28-29 October: Integrated Development Planning
Participation
The opening session is Tuesday, October 6 at 13:00 CAT (7:00 ET). You can join this session and all subsequent symposium sessions by clicking the link below:
