Table of Contents
Preface
Insecure land and resource tenure is widespread in the developing world, creating risks with far-reaching social, environmental, and economic consequences. Conflict over land and resources is already a significant driver of instability and violence. In the coming decades, the twin forces of climate change and population growth will exacerbate these challenges and precipitate a land crunch that researchers predict will be “one of the defining environmental challenges of modern times.”1
Robust, inclusive, and sustainable governance of land and natural resources is key to meeting these challenges and ensuring that the planet’s growing population not only survives, but thrives. Since its founding in 1961, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) invested more than a billion dollars to strengthen land tenure and resource governance in its assistance around the world.
The cruel and shortsighted dismantling of USAID by the Trump administration in the spring of 2025 put a halt to USAID’s land tenure work, and thousands of other lifesaving USAID programs. A study published by medical journal The Lancet in July 2025 found that USAID saved 30 million lives in the last two decades, and that the dismantling of the agency will result in 14 million preventable deaths by 2030.2
Alongside the elimination of USAID’s programs, the Trump administration destroyed a vast trove of research, evaluations, and other knowledge resources that had been used by millions of people globally to design life-saving and opportunity-creating programs. USAID’s Integrated Natural Resources Management (INRM) program is one victim of this digital purge. New America was one of the implementers of INRM.
This report is a single crucial piece of knowledge—out of 250 resources within INRM and many thousands across USAID—that former USAID staff and contractors have managed to salvage. We cherish the chance to share this knowledge with the world, and grieve the loss of thousands of equally important pieces of work that will stay buried.
Citations
- Richard King et al., The Emerging Global Crisis of Land Use (Chatham House, 2023), source.
- Daniella Medeiros et al., “Evaluating the Impact of Two Decades of USAID Interventions and Projecting the Effects of Defunding on Mortality up to 2030: A Retrospective Impact Evaluation and Forecasting Analysis,” The Lancet, 2025. source.