By Amy Coughenour Betancourt 

As the 2025 World Bank Land Conference came to a close this year, I’m left holding two truths: the growing need for community-led, collaborative land solutions, and the stark reality that international development funding is shrinking, fragmenting, and failing to meet the moment.

The global development landscape is undergoing a profound shift. In the United States, funding for climate action and international development has largely vanished. Elsewhere, donors are turning inward or redirecting their aid toward domestic priorities and crisis response. Even where climate finance remains on the table, it is often funneled through private or performance-based channels that rarely reach the communities doing the work on the ground. 

This is not just a budget problem; it’s a strategic failure. While high-level commitments stall and traditional funding streams dry up, communities continue to defend forests, adapt to climate extremes, manage natural resources, and push for legal recognition of their land rights. Their work hasn’t slowed, but the support they receive has. 

In this context, land rights can’t be treated as an add-on to sustainable development investments. Instead, land rights must be elevated as the bedrock of any serious strategy for a just energy transition, sustainable climate financing, and inclusive economic growth. 

Land Rights, Climate Goals, and the Forest Tenure Pledge 

The World Bank Land Conference made clear that the global land rights agenda is being reshaped by broader efforts unfolding outside the walls of multilateral institutions. From COP30’s upcoming Forest Tenure Pledge to the implementation of the Rio Conventions, there is growing recognition that secure tenure is central to reaching climate, biodiversity, and desertification goals. Calls for more direct climate mitigation and adaptation financing for Indigenous Peoples and local communities are gaining traction, but progress remains uneven and often symbolic. 

Sessions at the World Bank Land Conference echoed these tensions. For example, a powerful dialogue hosted by the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) showcased community mapping experiences in Guatemala, India, and Indonesia, demonstrating how local data collection and land documentation can drive recognition, governance reforms, livelihood improvements, and cultural preservation–but they are often stymied by lack of political will and direct support for formal recognition of rights. These stories served as a reminder that community-led land strategies are already being implemented, and that they deserve both visibility and sustained investment. 

The Power—and Necessity—of Community-led Mapping 

The large annual land gathering was a timely reminder of what is working and why we must work hard to continue to fund and support community-led mapping to drive tenure rights, sustainable land use, women’s land rights, and forest protection.

At Cadasta, we’ve long known that land tenure documentation is not just about maps and data, it’s about visibility, rights, and governance. Yet, most communities are not “on the map” and lack affordable, high-quality technology and know-how to collect and manage vast amounts of data needed to secure tenure rights and protect their territories. When involving communities in the process, especially women and youth, it ensures that communities can own and manage their data and use it to strengthen tenure rights and advocate in ways that reflect their realities and priorities, not just investment imperatives. 

At a side session entitled “Mapping Rights, Empowering Nature: Innovations in Geospatial Technology for Nature-Based Investments” with Kadaster International, Global Land Alliance, Hexagon, and Land Equity International, I shared examples of community leadership from our own experiences with partners. For example, in Belize, one partner shared how involving women in land mapping fundamentally changed the outcomes. Women’s knowledge of flora, fauna, and land use patterns added critical data that would have otherwise gone undocumented. The involvement of women resulted in richer, more comprehensive, and actionable land information needed to provide evidence for historical occupancy and land use by local Mayan communities. 

In Colombia, our partner, UNIPA, used bioethnic and cultural mapping to not only defend territory but also strengthen community leadership and intergenerational knowledge of the Awá People. In India, local NGOs have used our training and GIS platform to secure forest rights for forest-dwelling families and communities, leading to improved livelihoods and deeper economic resilience. 

These examples, along with others shared at the World Bank conference, underscore the same point: when communities lead the process, mapping becomes a tool of empowerment and protection, not just data collection. 

A Call for Strategic Investment 

The work we do at Cadasta, supporting communities with technology and training to document and manage their land and resource rights, is not a luxury. It’s a foundational investment. 

But in today’s funding environment, even this foundational work is increasingly overlooked. While global policy conversations turn to financing for large land-based investments, infrastructure, and energy transition, the basic resources communities need to protect their land and homes and equitably participate in market opportunities—clear land rights, accessible data systems, technical training, direct financing, and long-term support— seem increasingly out of reach. 

We must be honest about the disconnect. If donors and investors continue to retreat from climate, equity, and land tenure investments, no amount of private finance, “nature-based solutions”, or tech-for-good rhetoric will fix the structural gaps. Global investments will simply continue to leave behind the very people we depend on to steward natural resources, protect biodiversity, and build peace. 

What We Need to Do Now

The international land and climate sectors cannot afford to be reactive. We must adapt to the emerging reality with clarity and strategy. For Cadasta, that means doubling down on trusted community partnerships; pushing for flexible funding that centers local leadership and builds on local capacities and knowledge; and continuing to deliver mapping and data management tools and services that are effective, adaptable, and low-cost. 

By shining a light on how increased technology access, actionable data, and local skills development are leading to improved land tenure rights, better local decision-making, and improved land governance, Cadasta and our partners are showing donors and policymakers how smart, targeted investments make all the difference.

The big takeaway is that land rights are a prerequisite, not an afterthought, to achieving sustainable development and must be the cornerstone of all future development aid and investment if we believe in protecting both people and our planet..