Access to information is fundamental to good land governance and to securing land rights for landless and vulnerable people. Yet land-related data and knowledge often remain fragmented, inaccessible, or unevenly represented.

The Land Portal makes land information open, accessible, and inclusive. As a global hub for land governance knowledge, it empowers communities by making previously inaccessible data available and bringing forward perspectives that are often overlooked. It does so by improving the documentation, mapping, and monitoring of land governance issues. The Land Portal works to democratise the land information ecosystem, strengthen data flows across all levels and perspectives, and support evidence-based global debate on land issues.

The Land Portal’s ability to adapt quickly was tested in 2025, when the US government closed down USAID’s LandLinks Library platform in February. The LandLinks Library was the US government’s flagship channel for land information, comprising analytical reports, policy briefs, evaluations, learning notes, and technical guidance developed over two decades of USAID land and resource governance programmes. Together, these resources captured the evolution of thinking on how secure land and resource rights underpin inclusive growth, social stability, and environmental sustainability.

As it became clear that the platform would go offline, stakeholders raised concerns about the loss of access to these materials for policymakers, practitioners, and researchers worldwide. In response, the Land Portal team moved quickly in the days before the shutdown to migrate and preserve the collection. This rapid response underscores the Land Portal’s mission and one of the practical benefits of operating as a digital public good: the ability to act decisively to preserve open access to critical information in the public interest.

This achievement came shortly after the Land Portal was officially recognised as a digital public good, confirming its role in maintaining open, rights-based, and equitable digital knowledge systems that can endure institutional and political change.

Photo Credit : LandLinks Library.

Today, the LandLinks Library is live on the Land Portal, where users can explore, cite, and reuse its resources to inform programmes, policies, and research on land and resource governance around the world.

This experience also highlighted that openness alone is insufficient. For this reason, the Land Portal is committed to the DPG Standard and to registering additional core assets in the near future—such as LANDVOC, SOLIndex, and the Land Portal Knowledge Graph—as DPGs, to safeguard the durability, continued operation, and reuse of land information as a public good.

This content is part of the 2025 State of the Digital Public Goods Ecosystem Report, published by the Digital Public Goods Alliance in early February 2025. Learn more about the Alliance’s latest community highlights and explore the full report here.