Post Type: Article

In Bolivia, where 65 percent of the population is indigenous and 83 percent of the rural population lives below the poverty line, landlessness is one of the best predictors of poverty. While the Bolivian government has enacted policies to improve land access and tenure security, progress has been slow and as of 2009, only 37% of Bolivian land had been formally titled.

To address this issue, Mercy Corps – Red Tierras under funding from the private sector, has partnered with Fundación Tierra, a long-established local land rights organization, in order to assist rural communities in documenting their property rights.

Fundación Tierra has been working with local communities for years on land issues and with support from Mercy Corps – Red Tierras, was able to partner and bring to bear technology in order to increase the efficiency of their operations by utilizing handheld global positioning systems (GPS), digital cameras, an SMS based support line and a software system to manage textual and spatial details of property rights. Over the course of their pilot program working with seven target communities, the use of technology has resulted in an 80% reduction in the time needed to record rights and an estimated 25% cost savings, as compared to twenty three control communities. Property rights have now been recognized and documented at the community level for approximately 2,100 citizens and it is expected that the government will issue formal titles to these individuals in the coming months.

While formal titles may reduce conflict, promote security of rights and lead to better economic outcomes, USAID research suggests that additional examination of the benefits and use of formalization is warranted. In some cases formalization may not be appropriate or necessary to achieve increases in economic outcomes. As this research paper points out, land titling alone is not a panacea, but merely only one tool within a property rights system that might include inclusion of other documents pertaining to land rights, or even oral testimony.

While progressive laws in Bolivia allow indigenous communities to manage their own property rights, inefficiencies in the government and community processes in demarcating and recording rights has been a bottleneck in the formalization process. According to Program Manager Marcelo Viscarra, “The use of technology has allowed us to reduce the time and cost needed to document rights, and we look forward to scaling up this project across Bolivia… and Latin America.”

For more information, watch their video describing the activity. This project was not funded by USAID.

On April 30, USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah will attend a land restitution event in Colombia, where he will witness the transfer of land titles to individuals who have been displaced by the country’s internal conflict. Inequitable land distribution – an estimated 0.4% of the population owns 62% of the country’s best land – was a fundamental driver of the long-running conflict, which has caused an estimated 4 million Colombians to become internally displaced. Colombia has one of the highest rates of internally displaced persons in the world, and indigenous peoples and members of women-headed households have been forcibly displaced at disproportionately high levels.

As we noted in a previous commentary, land issues must be addressed if Colombia is to achieve enduring peace and stability. The case for addressing land tenure challenges in Colombia was discussed recently in the April edition of Foreign Affairs, where Oliver Kaplan and Michael Albertus argue that targeted land reform may assist the country to develop a more durable peace process. They go on to note that the international community should assist in the land reform effort.

USAID has supported land governance reform in Colombia for more than a decade. The Government of Colombia’s current land governance programs and policies, including the USAID-supported establishment of regional and local land restitution offices and the development of the Victims and Land Restitution Law, seek to strengthen land tenure security, promote rural development, and restitute land to the country’s internally displaced.

As President Barack Obama said in a ceremony with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos in May 2012: “[W]e all understand that peace is not simply the absence of war. True and lasting peace has to be based on justice and dignity for every person. And that’s why today is so important. Giving you and so many Afro-Colombian communities title to this land is part of ending this nation’s long conflict. It gives you a new stake in a new Colombia.”

See USAID’s Land Tenure and Property Rights Country Profile on Colombia for more information.

An April 10 article from the Thomson Reuters Foundation discusses the importance of securing land rights – particularly women’s land rights – in order to combat poverty, enhance food security, and increase vulnerable populations’ access to justice. According to the article, “when women have secure land rights, family health and education improves; women are less likely to be victims of domestic violence and are less vulnerable to contracting HIV/AIDS, and their participation in household decision-making rises.”

As the article points out, USAID and the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) have committed over $800 million to programs that improve land governance systems. USAID and MCC’s land governance programs – which aim to strengthen land tenure and resource rights for many of world’s poorest and most vulnerable people – often focus on women. For many women, access to land and property is essential for food production and sustainable livelihoods. Securing rights to land and property for women generate economic and social benefits, including: higher incomes, better nutrition, and decreased vulnerability.

For more information on women and land, see here.

On April 19, USAID released its first-ever Water and Development Strategy: 2013-2018, which emphasizes how sustainable use of water is critical to save lives, promote sustainable development, and achieve humanitarian goals. USAID’s development of this water strategy highlights the importance of sustainable resource governance across a wide range of strategic development objectives. According to USAID Administrator Dr. Rajiv Shah, “The impact of water on all aspects of development is undeniable: a safe drinking water supply, sanitation for health, management of water resources, and improvement of water productivity can help change the lives of millions.”

One of the water strategy’s main objectives is to “manage water for agriculture sustainably and more productively to enhance food security.” Sustainable management of natural resources cannot be achieved without clear rights to those resources. To that end, USAID works to clarify and strengthen rights to land and other natural resources, which in turn creates incentives for more efficient use of land and water, and eventually results in higher agricultural outputs and better conservation of valuable resources. Dr. Gregory Myers, USAID Division Chief, Land Tenure and Property Rights says, “When local communities feel secure in their rights to land, they invest more in agricultural inputs, work harder to increase their crop yields, and act as better stewards of the environment – all of which can lead to improved livelihood security.” Without secure rights or access to natural resources, there are fewer incentives to use water sustainably, which can threaten food security, lead to conflict, and on a much larger scale, contribute to global climate change.

Forest Trends, an International NGO, and others have noted that governments are increasingly recognizing the role of communities and indigenous people as forest custodians by recognizing their rights of forest control and ownership. A recent study by Dr. Anne Larson of the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and others, confirms this trend. The researchers compared case studies from Latin America, Asia, and Africa, focusing on forest and land tenure rights, equity, and livelihoods. The comparison found that 200 million hectares – approximately 11% of the world’s forests – are under the control of communities or indigenous people, mostly in Latin America. In the interview, Dr. Larson states that legal recognition of forest and land rights alone is insufficient, noting that the role of the state is critical to enforcement of property rights, as well as in the creation of additional policies which enable communities to benefit from those rights. Even when forest rights of communities and indigenous people are recognized, important issues such as the decision-making, distributing benefits from forest use, and expanding the role of women in decisions over community-forest resources need to be addressed.

On April 10, representatives from U.S. NGO Landesa presented an impact evaluation on USAID’s Kenya Justice Project during the World Bank’s Annual Conference on Land and Poverty. Kenya’s 2010 constitution provided greater legal recognition of women’s rights to own and inherit land; the Justice project – which is implemented by Landesa – has piloted a model for improving community awareness and acceptance of those formal rights in order to make them a reality for rural women. The Justice project has worked to increase women’s knowledge of their rights and empower them in the role of elders, with a desired outcome of increasing women’s access to customary justice. Women and elders have been trained in legal literacy and specific skills, while students have created justice-themed drama skits, poems, songs and posters.

The impact evaluation found significant and large improvements in women’s knowledge of their rights, women’s confidence in the dispute resolution process and outcomes, men’s respect of women’s rights, and modest improvements in physical and social accessibility of the local justice system for women. According to the report, “Anecdotal evidence indicates women have started to gain access to more land and, importantly, women reported gaining more control over decisions pertaining to their family land, such as decisions over how to use the land, what to plant and where to sell crops, and women are controlling the proceeds derived from the land they access.” Elders were proud to learn that the constitution recognizes and empowers their role and “began to acknowledge that women play a significant role in the household economy and that perhaps it is in the interest of their families to empower women to take on greater responsibilities within the family and community.” Men reported being more likely to divide their inheritance equally between single sons and daughters, but were still hesitant to bequeath land to married daughters.

For more information, see Enhancing Customary Justice Systems in The Mau Forest, Kenya: A Strategy for Strengthening Women’s Land Rights (paper and presentation).

Last week, the World Bank’s 14th Annual Conference on Land and Poverty – which was sponsored by USAID along with several other organizations – brought together more than 800 participants from 90 countries, representing government, private sector, civil society, academia, and development partners. The large attendance from a diverse set of participants reinforces the increasing recognition that good land and resource governance is central to a variety of development objectives.

The theme of this year’s conference was “Moving towards transparent land governance: Evidence-based next steps”. Throughout the week, conference participants discussed tools and methods for improving transparency in land transactions, including: initiatives for open contracting and open data, developing a harmonized set of land governance indications, and implementing international agreements such as the Voluntary Guidelines (VGs) for the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries, and Forests in the Context of National Food Security. As we noted in an earlier commentary, Dr. Gregory Myers, USAID Division Chief, Land Tenure and Property Rights, chaired the opening session of the conference—Global Support to Voluntary Guidelines (VGs) Implementation—which discussed the rising demand for and support to implementation of the VGs. Throughout the conference, numerous endorsements and statements of support were made for the VGs as an essential tool for improving land and resource governance, highlighted by a statement from the World Bank and comments during the closing plenary by USAID Assistant Administrator, Eric Postel and Director General for Policy and Global Issues at the U.K. Department for International Development (DFID), Michael Anderson.

In total, the conference featured more than 200 sessions over three days, in which presenters shared their research and project results around:

• Securing land rights and improving land use at the grassroots;
• Adjusting laws and institutions to address urban expansion and governance;
• Innovative approaches towards spatially enabling land administration and management;
• Supporting a continuum of rights in a decentralized environment;
• Mobilizing the private sector to improve land governance; and
• Sharing benefits from exploitation of land- based resources.

Throughout the conference, participants used the Twitter hashtag #landrights to share information and discuss news and events. The USAID Land Tenure and Property Rights Division will continue to use this hashtag to discuss issues relating to land and resource governance in the future, we encourage interested parties to do the same and join the conversation.

As the World Bank’s Annual Conference on Land and Poverty convened this week, the World Bank Group released a statement recognizing the importance of secure land rights for a variety of development objectives and reiterating the World Bank’s commitment to improving land governance and promote environmentally and socially sustainable agriculture investments. According Dr. Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank Group, “securing access to land is critical for millions of poor people. Modern, efficient, and transparent policies on land rights are vital to reducing poverty and promoting growth, agriculture production, better nutrition, and sustainable development.”

With 53 active programs in 32 countries, representing a commitment of over $800 million, USAID and the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) are also working to strengthen land and resource rights in order to foster economic growth, enhance food security, empower women, improve natural resource management, and reduce conflict. To learn more about USAID and MCC’s land tenure and property rights programs, see our newly-released primer.

In its statement, the World Bank also reiterated its support for the Voluntary Guidelines (VGs) on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security calling them “a major international instrument to inform specific policy reforms, including our own procedures and guidance to clients.” As we have noted previously, USAID welcomes the rising global support to implement the VGs. According to Dr. Gregory Myers, USAID Division Chief, Land Tenure and Property Rights, “the VGs are one of the most important tools developed by stakeholders to strengthen land governance systems. The USG remains committed to supporting implementation.”

By Dr. Gregory Myers, USAID Division Chief, Land Tenure and Property Rights

This morning, I had the honor, on behalf of USAID, to chair the first session of the World Bank’s annual Land and Poverty Conference, titled Global Support to Voluntary Guidelines Implementation. This conference has become the premier event on land and resource governance – it was standing room only at the opening session. This event’s growing attendance and importance highlights the increasing recognition that resource governance is central to alleviating poverty, promoting economic development, limiting conflicts, and protecting against the worst impacts of climate change.

In the last decade, the private sector, civil society organizations, host governments, donors and academics have committed to better understanding of and methodologies for increasing agricultural productivity across the globe. In 2012, G8 leaders at Camp David launched the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition. The New Alliance is a partnership between G8 governments, private companies and national governments toward making policy reforms to enable more investment in agriculture. Increasingly, the global community recognizes that good land governance is necessary for increased investment, and to mitigate against risks that could undermine productivity for all producers.

To that end, a number of global organizations have increasingly focused attention on the need to provide stakeholders with guidelines or principles for good land governance. Two of the most important efforts have been undertaken by the Committee for World Food Security: the adoption of the Voluntary Guidelines (VGs) for the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries, and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (which were adopted in May 2012) and the Principles for Responsible Agricultural Investment (RAI) (which are currently being developed). The process by which the Guidelines were adopted were in many ways unprecedented in their transparency, with participation from many civil society organizations, the private sector, multilateral institutions and more than 95 member states.

I was joined in opening session by Andrew Hilton, Patrice Talla, Francesca Romano, and Neil Pullar from the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO); and Christina Blank, Permanent Representative of Switzerland to the FAO, IFAD and WFP.

As the panelists discussed today, in the year since the Voluntary Guidelines were adopted, numerous organizations have recognized the importance of this tool as a means to promote more critical thinking about which policies make the most sense for improving resource governance. For my part, I am pleased to note that the G8 last year, under the U.S. Presidency, took a leading step forward in supporting implementation of the VGs, and a broad-based consultation process and pilot use of the RAI. This year, under the U.K. Presidency, we will see further progress supporting the VGs and RAI.

In the last year, bilateral and multilateral donors, CSOs, foundations, universities and others have worked hard to socialize the VGs, and FAO specifically has taken on the difficult task of awareness raising among stakeholders, and especially host-governments. There has been a dramatic increase in public discussion through social media about the VGs—in many ways these have become “The People’s Voluntary Guidelines.”

This morning, the panelists discussed the increase in demand for technical assistance to implement the VGs. They also noted, with increasing demand for implementation of the VGs, there is a concomitant need to build local capacity to administer land governance systems. Moreover, the panelists also discussed specific capacity-building tools, modalities, and software solutions intended to provide guidance, operational suggestions, and technical support toward implementation.

A few of the key points from the session included:

• The VGs provide an effective and realistic framework for improving land governance, strengthening access and rights, enhancing food security.
• FAO is receiving an increasing number of requests for technical assistance to implement the VGs, to date 22 countries have expressed a need.
• Successful implementation efforts will require engagement, collaboration, dialogue, and capacity building.
• There are important capacity building tools and technologies (including SOLA) being piloted to support the implementation process.
• Further review and refinements of these capacity building efforts will improve implementation.
• The RAI Zero Draft will be published in the coming days (by 15 April at the latest), the inclusive consultation process starts in May and we encourage all workshop participants to engage directly or through their constituencies in the consultation process.

I want to thank the panelists for an interesting and informative opening session and I am looking forward to the rest of the conference.

As attention to the central role land governance plays in economic growth, food security, and sustainable development continues to increase, recognition of the Voluntary Guidelines (VGs) for the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries, and Forests in the Context of National Food Security’s importance as a framework to guide effective laws and policies continues to rise. Workshops on the VGs have recently been held in Rwanda and Cameroon, with representatives from governments, civil society, and the private sector from around 20 countries attending each event. These workshops provide an opportunity for participants to learn more about the VGs, to identify ways to improve governance of tenure, and to propose ideas for implementation of the guidelines. The next meeting is scheduled for the week of April 22-25 in Amman, Jordan.

The US Government (USG) is committed to working with the international community to support implementation of the VGs – as well as the resource governance priorities identified by the G8 – as a strategy for improving food security, economic growth, and sustainable development. According to Dr. Gregory Myers, USAID Division Chief, Land Tenure and Property Rights, “the VGs are one of the most important tools developed by stakeholders to strengthen land governance systems. The USG remains committed to funding work that will support implementation.”

Along with raising awareness of the VGs, the focus of the international community is on identifying opportunities for implementation of the guidelines. In February, over 60 participants attended an expert meeting organized by the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) as part of the UN Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (UN-REDD) in order to identify prioritized actions for improved legal frameworks and opportunities for cooperation between government bodies and civil society. As the meeting’s background paper points out, land and forest tenure are intrinsically linked to the debate on carbon rights and the equal sharing of benefits at national and local levels in all national REDD+ programs. REDD+ provides an opportunity to achieve sustainable forest management and to strengthen the resource rights of local communities and indigenous peoples. International donors, governments, and civil society organizations working to address these issues should continue to look to the VGs for guidance and best practices.

Click here for more information on the VGs from USAID.