The Land Portal Foundation is seeking a dynamic and highly motivated (Open) Data Officer to join our dynamic data team in charge of leading the information and data sharing needs of the Land Portal. The (Open) Data Officer will ensure all data harvested and published by the Land Portal is highly curated and managed and respond to open data standards and FAIR principles. The (Open) Data Officer will also contribute to advocacy and capacity building strategy and ensure uptake of such principles by the land community.
The successful candidate will also be welcomed into a small, dedicated and disbursed team of international professionals that make up the Land Portal. The Land Portal is an inclusive space and we encourage applications from women, and candidates from the Global South.
Organizational profile
At the Land Portal, we believe that data and information are powerful tools for achieving our vision of a land governance system that benefits those with the most insecure land rights and the greatest vulnerability to landlessness. However, information sources remain highly fragmented, unstructured, poorly curated and represent a narrow range of perspectives; they continue to be published in ways that do not facilitate maximum discovery, engagement and reuse. Until policy and decision-makers, intermediaries and grassroots groups have access to the data and information they need to make sound decisions, their initiatives will fail to achieve maximum impact.
The Land Portal exists to fill in these gaps, and to nurture a vibrant online platform to inform and engage with partners. We do this by promoting open data and the sharing of best practices and stimulating debate and collaboration both on and offline. We provide a vital bridge for those grappling with complex land governance issues, from researchers and NGOs through to governments and grassroots communities, by connecting people, facilitating dialogue and by mending fragmented information.
Raising awareness of “open data” and the critical role it plays in realizing tenure security for individuals and communities around the world continues to be a great challenge. To this end, we make use of every possible conference, meeting and speaking engagement to promote the concept of “going open,” while recognizing that, given the highly sensitive nature of land data (particularly for vulnerable communities), not everything can or should be made entirely open.
We set out an ambitious new strategy in 2019 to improve the documentation, mapping and monitoring of land governance issues; enrich and inform the global debate on land rights; and democratize access to the land governance “information ecosystem” and improve the flow of data between diverse actors. The (Open) Data Officer plays an important role in building this information ecosystem.
Job Description
The (Open) Data Officer will be responsible for data ingestions and updates in the Land Portal database, with special attention to the Land Portal’s priority themes (Urban Tenure, Gender & Land, Land & Investments, Land Monitoring Initiatives, Community & Indigenous Land Rights), as well as support and contribution to Land Portal’s knowledge products including the State of Land Information work and and thematic and country portfolios and contribute to open data advocacy strategy and capacity building efforts.
Principal Tasks & Responsibilities:
- Keep the Land Portal Database constantly up-to-date and curated by updating Statistical, Bibliographic, and Project data importers and checking it against errors;
- Keep documentation for all re-run importers up-to-date.
- Ingest new Statistical, Bibliographic, and Project data in the Land Portal database, based on Land Portal priority themes. This includes:
- Scope and triage new statistical, spatial and project datasets and bibliographic repositories to ingest that are relevant for Land Portal priority themes;
- Collaborate with the Information Management & Advocacy Officer to develop quarterly data plans and prioritize sources for ingestion; assist in communication with data providers and other external parties;
- Curate and perform preliminary quality checks for the data,
- Develop scripts to ingest data, working with API and CSV files;
- Run importers to generate RDF and upload RDF data to Virtuoso;
- For bibliographic data importers, analyze and curate external metadata, map external data (metadata models, taxonomies, etc.) to the Library’s data model and, finally, profile missing publishers as organizations on the Portal (incl. documenting number of new publishers) before running the importer and ingesting data in the Library and Virtuoso;
- Document process of ingestion for each importer on the process and the code for developers;
- Contribute in improving research methodology and performing of Open Data Assessments on Land Portal’s State of Land Information (SOLI)
- Contribute to the continuous development and refinement of the research methodology of the State of Land Information (SOLI);
- Write the Open Data Compliance assessment upon identified datasets and repositories based on SOLI scoping country exercises;
- Review and provide comments to the Open Data Assessment Report written by the Land Data Advocacy & Management Officer.
- Assist with developing the Land Projects content type as well as ingesting relevant project data
- Support the process of migration of Land Governance map Database into the land Portal; develop specification and oversee user needs assessment, development of specifications and web development in close collaboration with the GDWGL, Land Portal data and ICT teams;
- Further enhance project (meta-)data model and identify possible new (standard) taxonomies to use;
- In close collaboration the Land Data Advocacy & Management Officer, scope for, prioritize and triage potential land project databases and land individual projects/programs to ingest into the new Land Portal Database and assist in communication with data owners and other external parties;
- Generate new project importers based on priority list. Analyze and curate external metadata, map external data model (metadata models, taxonomies, etc.) to the Land Portal’s model and, finally, profile missing project owners as organizations on the Portal before running the importer and ingesting data in Drupal and Virtuoso;
- Document process of ingestion for each importer on the process and the code for developers.
- Provide support to the development of LandVoc
- Provide IT support to the LandVoc website, www.landvoc.org (link is external);
- Maintain and ensure consistent lists of concepts are recorded in all places Landvoc is used and/or stored (i.e. LandVoc website, AGROVOC Vocbench, internal Drive documentation and in Drupal) in collaboration with the Information Management Officer;
- Provide advice and guidance on the future strategy and development of LandVoc based on expertise in semantic web and ontology management.
Qualifications and skills
The successful candidate will be selected against the following:
- University Education (Masters level or higher, or equivalent) in Information Science, information management or any other relevant fields;
- Programming skills (eg. Python, Java);
- Knowledge of Drupal; Vocbench, Skosmos, Bootstrap;
- Knowledge of Virtuoso;
- Proven experience in data management (2 to 5 years);
- Strong knowledge about open data, semantic web, linked data, controlled vocabularies and data sharing technologies;
- Knowledge about data standards and metadata standards;
- Fluency in English. Knowledge of other languages would be an asset;
- Superior attention to detail;
- Good drafting, communicating and presenting abilities;
- knowledge of land governance related issues and land data landscape;
- Experience working as part of an international distributed, remote team;
- Disciplined – good at managing time.
- Strong capacity to work in a team, autonomously, and respect tight deadlines.
Personal and Professional Attributes
- Inclusive and effective communication skills and techniques with an ability to respectfully engage with, and communicate concepts to others;
- High standard of ethics and integrity which inspires trust and confidence;
- Enthusiasm and commitment to sustained effort through diligence and pursuit of high standards;
- Commitment to ongoing personal and professional development which drives best practice.
- Proactively utilizes initiative, innovation and a commitment to continuous improvement;
- Strong collaborative skills which enable effective engagement within a high functioning, cohesive team;
- Ability to employ sound judgment and decision making amongst competing demands;
- Ability to show initiative in planning and developing new ideas and approaches, and to implement and communicate change effectively;
- Problem-solving attitude;
- Diplomacy, team spirit and willingness to take initiative;
- Ability to meet strict deadlines.
Reporting
The (Open) Data Officer will report directly to the Land Portal Team Leader and will be accountable to the Board of the Land Portal Foundation. She/he will work under the supervision of the Land Information Management & Advocacy Officer and will report time spent against the ToRs every month in the Land Portal Foundation’s Timesheets; She/he will develop weekly and quarterly work plans in close cooperation with the Land Information Management & Advocacy Officer and will report accordingly.
Position
This position is home-based and will be staffed on a part-time (5-6 days/month) consultancy basis for a year following a probationary period of 3 months. The official language for this position is English. The salary level will depend on experience and seniority.
How to apply?
Please send your curriculum vitae (CV) and a cover letter explaining your interests and qualifications (addressed to Laura Meggiolaro, Land Portal Team Leader) no later than midnight CET on 19 March, 2021 or email your cover letter and CV to jobs@landportal.info (link sends e-mail).
Please write “(Open) Data Officer – Job Application” as the subject of the email.
Posted: 19th March 2021 by Coordinator
Opening of 2 PhD positions at VUB and KU Leuven in the field of housing and neighborhood studies
Deadline for application: 3rd May 2021
For a new project on ‘Reconceptualizing the right to housing from a personal and neighborhood perspective’ Cosmopolis Centre of Urban Research of Vrije Universiteit Brussel and OSA Urbanism & Architecture of KU Leuven are jointly recruiting two PhD researchers. Reconceptualizing the right to housing from a personal and neighborhood perspective. Public housing systems are under pressure due to the limited offer, declining social cohesion and increasing shifts towards private provision and middle-income target groups. In response to a permanent housing crisis and declining public housing systems, civil society, activist groups and housing movements are setting up new housing initiatives. We are interested to understand how the right to housing is guaranteed or reclaimed in the new bottom-up initiatives and in the public housing strategies that aim to provide affordable housing solutions. In deprived or low-income neighborhoods the spatial expression of the housing crisis becomes apparent in substandard housing conditions, affordable housing shortage and processes of social exclusion and gentrification. On the personal level, poor and insecure housing conditions produce residential alienation. Based on a mapping of affordable housing solutions and in-depth interviews with residents of these new initiatives and public housing projects in two neighborhoods in Brussels and Antwerp, we aim to contribute to a new theoretical understanding of the right to housing. By reconceptualizing the right to housing from a personal and neighborhood perspective, we contribute to a better understanding of the legitimacy of affordable housing solutions, whether they are public or bottom-up initiatives or combinations of both.
Offer
We offer two full-time PhD fellowships for 48 months starting inSeptember 2021under the joint supervision of profs. Ryckewaert, d’Auria and Aernouts.The PhD candidates will be hired at Cosmopolis VUB or OSA KU Leuven respectively, and will spendtheir research time in both research units. The candidates will enroll as PhD students at VUB and KU Leuven and will obtain a joint-PhD degree from both institutions.
For more information and how to apply, click here.
Posted: 19th March 2021 by Coordinator
Land MDPI Special Issue “Land Perspectives: People, Tenure, Planning, Tools, Space, and Health”
Good land administration helps to secure property tenures. It also protects the land rights of people (including individuals, communities, and the state) through good governance principles and practices. Therefore, probing land administration practices—whether in developed or developing countries—is essential to developing tools or methods for securing natural resource rights for people, especially for youth and women. Understanding the land and health or wellbeing nexus is crucial for adequate living conditions for people in living urban, peri-urban, and rural areas. A broad knowledge gap exists on the land/water/forest–people–health–wellbeing nexus of natural resource administration research and practical tools.
This Special Issue presents insights on theories and practices on land administration in the context of land/water/forest–people–health–wellbeing nexus relationships. We, therefore, invite conceptual, case studies, field research, and review articles focusing on (but not limited to) the following themes:
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 November 2021.
Special Issue Editors
Guest Editor
Interests: land methods; land-use/spatial planning; land tenure; land management; land administration; land governance/policy; rural/(peri)urban development; women’s land rights
Special Issues and Collections in MDPI journals
Guest Editor
Interests: land use change, natural resource management, land use planning, environmental governance; rural-–urban interaction, social justice; disaster risk reduction; extreme events; sustainable development goals
Guest Editor
Interests: environment governance; production of space; land use and management; rural-urban interactions; sustainable development goals; gender issues; inequality
Special Issues and Collections in MDPI journals
For more information, please visit the website here.
Last Updated: 19th March 2021 by Coordinator
Young Farmers Open Letter Contest
Young Farmers Open Letter Contest
BACKGROUND
In 2020, the consortium Asian Farmers’ Association for Sustainable Rural Development (AFA) and La Via Campesina (LVC) through the ASEAN Farmers’ Organisation Support Programme (AFOSP) – Asia-Pacific Farmers’ Program (APFP) platform conducted the “Young Farmers Dance Challenge” with the following objectives: 1) to attract young people to join Farmers Organizations; 2) to build friendship and cooperation among young farmers; and, 3) to raise awareness about young farmers contribution in preventing the spread of COVID19 as well as their contribution in the recovery from the pandemic. The contest was participated by 15 young farmers groups from Central Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. Visit this page for more information: https://asiapacificfarmersforum.net/young-farmers-dance-challenge/
As a continuation of the efforts to promote agriculture to the youth, AFA-LVC will hold another activity aimed at young farmers: the “Young Farmers Open Letter Contest”. This activity will be a platform for young farmers to express to policymakers their story and the challenges they face in farming, and at the same to communicate these issues to a bigger audience via social media.
OBJECTIVES
The Young Farmers Open Letter Competition aims to:
WHO CAN JOIN
• Young farmers (15 to 35 years old)
• Must be a member of any of the farmers’ groups within the AFOSP-APFP partners (as certified by NFO and NIA)
For more information, please visit the website here.
Last Updated: 4th March 2021 by Coordinator
The Open City Initiative
The Initiative will be launched through a series of webinars and workshops planned in two weeks from March 16 to March 26. They will provide an opportunity for sharing and exchange of knowledge about the Open City. A wide range of academic and nonacademic speakers will be present, such as NGOs, activists, researchers and students.
Who we are
The organization of the initiative is led by: Abigail Friendly, Kei Otsuki, Francesca Pilo (Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning); Martijn Oosterbaan (Department of Anthropology), and Babette Berrocal (Centre for Global Challenges, UGlobe) at Utrecht University.
If you have any questions regarding one of our events, please feel free to contact us by e-mail through: opencity@uu.nl
Webinars & Workshops
For more information and how to register, visit the website here.
Last Updated: 3rd March 2021 by Coordinator
MLRF | Vacancy Communications and Event Management Specialist
The Mekong Region Land Governance together with our partners; FAO and Land Portal will be organising the Mekong Regional Land Forum 2021 in May. We are currently looking for a Communications and Event Management Specialist. The application is pretty short as we will be closing on 24 February. The Applicant will be contracted for 25 working days. Compensation will be commensurate with the successful applicant’s qualifications and competitive with global standards in the industry. More information about the position here.
Last Updated: 2nd March 2021 by Coordinator
Land Portal | Job Opportunity: (Open) Data Officer
The successful candidate will also be welcomed into a small, dedicated and disbursed team of international professionals that make up the Land Portal. The Land Portal is an inclusive space and we encourage applications from women, and candidates from the Global South.
Organizational profile
At the Land Portal, we believe that data and information are powerful tools for achieving our vision of a land governance system that benefits those with the most insecure land rights and the greatest vulnerability to landlessness. However, information sources remain highly fragmented, unstructured, poorly curated and represent a narrow range of perspectives; they continue to be published in ways that do not facilitate maximum discovery, engagement and reuse. Until policy and decision-makers, intermediaries and grassroots groups have access to the data and information they need to make sound decisions, their initiatives will fail to achieve maximum impact.
The Land Portal exists to fill in these gaps, and to nurture a vibrant online platform to inform and engage with partners. We do this by promoting open data and the sharing of best practices and stimulating debate and collaboration both on and offline. We provide a vital bridge for those grappling with complex land governance issues, from researchers and NGOs through to governments and grassroots communities, by connecting people, facilitating dialogue and by mending fragmented information.
Raising awareness of “open data” and the critical role it plays in realizing tenure security for individuals and communities around the world continues to be a great challenge. To this end, we make use of every possible conference, meeting and speaking engagement to promote the concept of “going open,” while recognizing that, given the highly sensitive nature of land data (particularly for vulnerable communities), not everything can or should be made entirely open.
We set out an ambitious new strategy in 2019 to improve the documentation, mapping and monitoring of land governance issues; enrich and inform the global debate on land rights; and democratize access to the land governance “information ecosystem” and improve the flow of data between diverse actors. The (Open) Data Officer plays an important role in building this information ecosystem.
Job Description
The (Open) Data Officer will be responsible for data ingestions and updates in the Land Portal database, with special attention to the Land Portal’s priority themes (Urban Tenure, Gender & Land, Land & Investments, Land Monitoring Initiatives, Community & Indigenous Land Rights), as well as support and contribution to Land Portal’s knowledge products including the State of Land Information work and and thematic and country portfolios and contribute to open data advocacy strategy and capacity building efforts.
Principal Tasks & Responsibilities:
Qualifications and skills
The successful candidate will be selected against the following:
Personal and Professional Attributes
Reporting
The (Open) Data Officer will report directly to the Land Portal Team Leader and will be accountable to the Board of the Land Portal Foundation. She/he will work under the supervision of the Land Information Management & Advocacy Officer and will report time spent against the ToRs every month in the Land Portal Foundation’s Timesheets; She/he will develop weekly and quarterly work plans in close cooperation with the Land Information Management & Advocacy Officer and will report accordingly.
Position
This position is home-based and will be staffed on a part-time (5-6 days/month) consultancy basis for a year following a probationary period of 3 months. The official language for this position is English. The salary level will depend on experience and seniority.
How to apply?
Please send your curriculum vitae (CV) and a cover letter explaining your interests and qualifications (addressed to Laura Meggiolaro, Land Portal Team Leader) no later than midnight CET on 19 March, 2021 or email your cover letter and CV to jobs@landportal.info (link sends e-mail).
Please write “(Open) Data Officer – Job Application” as the subject of the email.
Posted: 2nd March 2021 by Coordinator
Nominate a Climate Hero
The ”Climate Crossroads” series will showcase how traditional knowledge can help us redefine how to interpret our relationship with nature and each other, through freshly commissioned works of art. Ten leaders will be selected to highlight what we can learn about resilience, cooperation and interconnectedness as we move towards a post-pandemic world, and their stories will be turned into powerful and moving works of sound and animation.
Read more and nominate!
Last Updated: 3rd March 2021 by Coordinator
KPS&RL | Knowledge Management Fund
Deadline expression of interest: 12 March 2021
The Knowledge Platform Security & Rule of Law has launced a Knowledge Management Fund. The Knowledge Management Fund is the Knowledge Platform’s instrument to financially support activities arising from its network. The small-scale grants awarded by the Fund offer a low barrier to entry for innovative, agile and experimental proposals. The aim of proposals is to diversify thinking and evidence in the Security & Rule of Law (SRoL) field, particularly in Fragile and Conflict-Affected Settings (FCAS).
The KMF is an annual fund that awards grants for 9-month projects of up to €20,000 for events, research ideas and other initiatives that contribute to improving the quality of knowledge generated by the SRoL field, and its subsequent uptake.
More information
Posted: 2nd March 2021 by Coordinator
Blog | Ensuring women’s participation in land governance: “bringing the law home” in Tanzania
Despite Tanzania’s progressive legal framework on land rights and governance, many women are often left out of community decision-making due to social and cultural norms that persist in some areas of the country. In this guest blog at IIED, Isabella Nchimbi, programme officer at Tanzania Women Lawyers Association (TAWLA), discusses a participatory initiative in Tanzania that’s helping women make their voices heard when it comes to land governance.
Read the blog
Posted: 2nd March 2021 by Coordinator
Perspective | Five insights on internal displacement and human rights for Asia and the Pacific in terms of the Paris Agreements
In this perspective article, author Albert Salamanca, Senior Research Fellow at the Stockholm Environment Institute’s Asia Centre, shares five insights on internal displacement and human rights for Asia in terms of the Paris Agreements. These insights have emerged from work in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Nepal, the Philippines, Thailand, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, where the researchers mapped out the role of both disaster risk reduction and management (DRRM) and human rights law and policy in responding to internal displacement.
Read more