July 2025 Message from the MD

From the middle of winter here in Australia and our financial year just closing, welcome to a mid-year operations update from the team. Our January 2025 LEI newsletter was shared 2 weeks prior to the unprecedented stop work order issued to our Lesotho Land and Gender consultancy. Our team was deep in planning for another round of community and household meetings addressing new issues of land inheritance, trialing a newly established grievance mechanism and educating communities about more gender inclusive practices for decision making. Abruptly stopping the work was devastating. Communities’ expectations were raised. Numerous stakeholders were left stranded on a learning curve of land rights and inheritance discussions and social and behavioural change actions. The team’s desire and passion to ignite a new economy, food security and rural development opportunity to their fellow citizens was quashed in a moment. We can only hope that such long negotiations are an indication of a way through and not a way out.

Uncertainty and discontinuity, like many of our peers, is an unfortunate theme in our work at LEI in today’s global development climate. We are fortunate to carefully plan for stormy days, so we went into our annual planning sessions determined to explore where our skills and services can most effectively and efficiently serve our purpose to improve the lives of people by improving land governance and tenure security. We approached our sessions with optimism and innovative ideas: initiatives were pitched; the marketplace evaluated; and our results carefully reviewed for sustainability and effectiveness.

Looking forward in 2025: Our Nepal land administration digitalization project will draw investigative results together for a national roadmap on digitalization and decentralization. Just nearby, we’ll be hosting the 4^th Mekong Region Land Forum. You may recall our 3^rd Mekong Forum conducted online in 2021. This year’s event promises to be a full in person event (invited guests only), as well as online streaming for all. Many of MRLG’s partners, including some who have joined the journey for over a decade, will share outcomes related to interconnected challenges that are reshaping the region: climate change, the agrarian transition, and policy reforms for improved customary tenure recognition and responsible agricultural investment. Join us in action from the 17^th September 2025 for 3 days.