This guide addresses the recording of tenure rights with the particular focus on improving existing ways to record rights. There are many recording systems around the world that help to bring tenure security and other benefits to people who hold tenure rights, but there are also many systems that do not function well, and barriers can be placed unintentionally or deliberately to prevent people from using the systems.

This guide provides practical advice on how to improve the existing ways to record rights so that the benefits and protections offered by recording systems can be available to all without discrimination.This guide is accompanied by another guide that focuses on a different aspect of recording tenure rights: creating a new recording system and recording rights for the first time (Creating a system to record tenure rights and first registration).As these two guides cover different aspects of recording rights, they can be read as standalone documents, and as such, they have some text in common.

However, some readers may benefit from reading both guides.These two guides on different aspects of recording rights are part of a series of technical guides that offer advice on various aspects of improving governance of tenure, consistent with the Guidelines.

Historic decision on land tenure adopted by UNCCD COP 14 ​​​​​​​. During a high-level session at the close of the UNCCD COP 14 (United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification Conference of the Parties) in September, a declaration to focus on land-based solutions to combat climate change was adopted. In the declaration, the relevance of the VGGT was reaffirmed for better access, control and stewardship over land and equitable tenure security. It encourages parties to use the principles laid out in the VGGT in the implementation of activities to combat desertification/land degradation and drought.  In closing the session Ibrahim Thiaw, Executive Secretary of the UNCCD, emphasized that the key message to the upcoming UN climate summit in New York was clear, “investing in land, unlocks multiple opportunities.”

FAO was invited to produce a technical guide on integrating the VGGT into the implementation of the Convention and land degradation neutrality, taking into account national contexts for consideration by the Conference of the Parties at its fifteenth session.

Land Tenure. Draft decision. COP 14  
The New Delhi Declaration: Investing in Land and Unlocking Opportunities
UNCCD website