Post Type: Blog

In November 2021 a different kind of mobile library came to Bong County, Liberia. Through funding from USAID’s Land Evidence for Economic Rights, Gender, and Equality (LEVERAGE) Activity and in partnership with Landesa, Talking Books are bringing information about the Land Rights Act, passed in 2018, to 31 rural communities in the Panta, Gahn, and Wrumah clans. Talking Books are simple, hand-held audio players that deliver audio messages in local languages to low-literacy populations in areas without consistent electricity and/or internet connection.

The passage of  the Land Rights Act marked an important milestone for land rights in Liberia. The Land Rights Act provides for the first time a nationwide process for communities to legally certify and manage their customary lands. The Land Rights Act also strengthens rural women’s legal rights to access and manage land by recognizing women as community members, mandating that each community member be allocated land for housing and agriculture, and requiring equal participation by women in community land governance bodies. However, biased gender norms, widespread lack of knowledge about women’s land rights in Liberia, and gendered barriers to accessing information and services mean that women are often left out of decisions about land and are unable to exercise their land rights.

To address these issues, USAID is partnering with the NGO, Landesa, to pilot an information campaign using Talking Books to build awareness about women’s land rights in Liberia. USAID’s LEVERAGE program is distributing Talking Books to women-headed households, ethnic minorities, women’s groups, and youth groups. Each Talking Book contains eight pre-recorded “chapters” that explain the Land Rights Act in a variety of local languages and dialects using culturally relevant concepts. The chapters cover the basics of the Land Rights Act and other topics such as the steps that communities can take to map their lands and apply for a formal land certificate, how to create by-laws and committees to manage the land as a community, alternative dispute resolution, women’s legal land and property rights, and the differences between tribal certificates and deeds. The chapters teach the importance of, and the legal requirement for, equal representation of women on all land management committees. Messages also explain women’s and men’s inheritance rights and explain women’s and men’s land rights inside and outside of formal and customary marriages, consistently emphasizing the rights of women as citizens and community members.   

Instead of attending a one-time community training session, people can listen to the messages on Talking Books at their own pace, as many times as they like, and while doing other activities. This flexibility is especially important for women who face additional constraints on their time, mobility, and access to information and public spaces. Listeners can also record their questions and comments about the messages on the Talking Books for LEVERAGE activity staff. Using Talking Books also enables women, men, and communities to continue to learn about their land rights during the COVID-19 pandemic when frequent large gatherings are not safe.

After listening to the Talking Books, communities hold a town hall meeting to discuss their questions with local land tenure experts. Town halls include separate sessions for women to raise their questions and challenges with land rights in a setting that is less public and less influenced by gendered dynamics of public speaking. Questions that community members raise during town halls and that they record on the Talking Books will inform segments of Landesa’s nationally broadcast Land Is Life radio show. The show features prominent Liberian personalities andlinks communities across the country to a national conversation on women’s land rights. 

Bringing information on women’s land rights to women, men, and youth and fostering community conversations about women’s land rights at a time when Liberia’s communities are beginning the process of formalizing land rights and establishing community land governance bodies is critical. The LEVERAGE activity aims to increase women’s participation in land governance and supports their secure and equitable access to land according to the law. 

Why Women’s Land Rights Matter

Ownership and control over assets are central to women’s economic empowerment and their ability to contribute to local, national, and global economies. For many women, the most valuable of these assets are the land and natural resources from which they earn a living, provide for their families, and invest in their communities. Through programs, partnerships, research and policy reforms, USAID is working on the ground to address  the barriers women face to accessing and controlling land, as well as the benefits that secure land and resource rights bring to women, their families, and communities.

 

Across the U.S. Government, USAID is a leader in using evidence.  Evidence-based programming is a foundation for effective development. One of INRM’s main tasks is to assist USAID’s Operating Units with the use of evidence to support integrated ENRM programming. For example, using evidence and knowledge to strengthen gender equality and social inclusion is a core focus of INRM, which is reflected across all of its activities and buy-ins. INRM deploys a combination of methods for evidence generation and synthesis, aiming to improve the utility of knowledge products to inform future programming decisions.

See below for some related updates from INRM and resources from across USAID that explore the use of evidence to support the achievement of development objectives.

In this digest:

INRM’s current evidence work

• Applying systematic approaches to fill evidence gaps for artisanal and small-scale gold mining in Colombia
• Adapting analytical solutions to efficiently gather evidence on economic well-being in Madagascar
• Using a combination of methods to investigate impacts of COVID-19 on USAID environment programming
• Using evidence to test hypotheses about the effectiveness of participatory natural resources management strategic approaches

Additional USAID resources on evidence

• USAID Draft Evidence Framework
• Strengthening Evidence-Based Development
• Evidence in Action
• Advancing Gender and the Environment

Read the full digest here.

Gender equality guidelines will motivate Zambia’s traditional leaders to champion women’s rights in land and resource management

Women in Zambia, like in most countries, have less access to land, productive resources, and opportunities than men. Due to discriminatory gender norms that view men as heads of household, men typically have more decision making power at both the household and community level. This leads women to have less of a voice in decisions about land use, income earning opportunities, household finances, and community resource distribution. 

Traditional leaders hold political, social, and cultural power in the country, and as such, can play a key role in shifting harmful gender norms and advancing gender equality. Under Zambia’s 2014 National Gender Policy, traditional leaders are required to promote gender equality in their chiefdoms. In response to this mandate, the House of Chiefs, an elected body of chiefs that provides coordination and operational support to traditional leaders throughout the country, have proven they are willing to promote gender equality advocacy campaigns, taking a proactive role in rolling out the Campaign Against Child Marriages and Gender-Based Violence and the National Action Plan on Climate Change. However, when it comes to practical action, they lack the tools to turn these national advocacy strategies into real local level reforms. 

Gender Guidelines 

In November, the House of Chiefs launched the Gender Guidelines for Traditional Leaders in the Management of Natural Resources in their Chiefdoms. The guidelines are a set of practices for strengthening women’s land and resource rights within Zambia’s 288 chiefdoms. They provide traditional leaders with tools to encourage gender equality in policies and activities at the local level. The guidelines are the result of a multi-year partnership between the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Integrated Land and Resource Governance (ILRG) program and the Zambia House of Chiefs to promote women’s land rights, address harmful gender norms, and increase women’s participation in natural resource management. 

Other activities under this partnership include the Chalimbana University Diploma Course on Traditional Leadership, a masterclass specifically designed for Chiefs and traditional leaders, which includes gender equality and social inclusion in its curriculum and is now in its second year. USAID is also working with indunas, or the local advisors to chiefs, in a year-long dialogue focused on identifying and changing gender norms that hinder women’s land rights. 

The guidelines focus on strengthening gender-responsiveness in areas and practices where chiefs have legal and social power such as land, forestry, wildlife, water, agriculture, climate change, child marriage, and education. In the area of women’s access and ownership of lands, the guidelines promote the participation of women in land committees, and they ban practices that amount to land-grabs from widows, including forcing widows to marry a husband’s relative in order to access land. In forest management, the guidelines bring women into local community forest management groups and provide access to extension services. Across the guidelines, chiefs are encouraged to challenge discriminatory gender norms and champion women leaders. The guidelines also provide tools to track progress against common goals and assess how these leaders are contributing to broader national gender equality initiatives. 

Implementation 

Across Zambia, traditional leaders have a great deal of power and influence. They have jurisdiction over vast swaths of customary land and resources and control everything from land use and access to inheritance rights. In their chiefdoms, they hold decision making power, mediate disputes, and act as the liaison with government officials. As authorities on cultural practices, traditional leaders can play a key role as champions of gender equality at the local level where discriminatory gender norms drastically restrict women’s access to and control over land and resources. These guidelines are a crucial step, as national laws that protect women’s land rights and inheritance protections do not extend to customary land. 

The guidelines will first be piloted in two areas over the next year to help assess how the House of Chiefs can support their implementation across Zambia’s 288 chiefdoms. Launched by the Chair of the House of Chiefs, Senior Chief Luembe, and the Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Gary Nkombo, the guidelines provide an example of how chiefs can create local and culturally appropriate practices that respond to government policy. Minister Nkombo highlighted the importance of chiefs in influencing customs, particularly in rural areas.

“These guidelines take us a step further in achieving our goal as a Ministry to operationalize the gender policy and achieve the developmental goals of our nation,”  Minister Nkombo said at the event.

“There is no doubt that the measures proposed in these guidelines, if well implemented, will greatly benefit our chiefdoms and help us live our mandate as gender champions,” explains His Royal Highness Chief Luembe, Chairperson, House of Chiefs.

Q&A with three rural women from Tolima about claiming their land rights and inspiring women in their communities.

This blog was originally published by Land for Prosperity. 

As part of the massive land formalization campaign in Ataco Municipality, Tolima, USAID Land for Prosperity Activity joined Colombia’s Land Restitution Unit (URT) to deliver a series of workshops to empower rural women ranging in age about property rights, land ownership, the care economy, and gender-based violence.

The women, who are involved in land restitution and formalization processes, will then replicate the knowledge with other women from their communities. In this interview, the following three women talk about their experience:

• Jimena Gutiérrez, 18, is finishing high school and works as a guard for the Mesa de Pole indigenous community.
• Laura Sanabria, 26, is a feminist and sociology student, an activist, and the leader of the Ataicamas Santiago Perez youth organization.
• Aracely Montano, 56, is a mother, housewife, and for the two years has been involved in a land restitution process.

Why do you think these empowerment workshops are only for women?

Aracely: Our gender has been abandoned, and they don’t listen to us. Because of sexism, men are always the ones who lead and make decisions.

Jimena: So that women are empowered and fight for their rights. Women’s rights are constantly being violated, and these spaces highlight how women are also capable, just as much as men.

Which do you think is the biggest obstacle that women face in their communities when it comes to expressing their rights?

Aracely: Because of sexism we have never been heard, men are always saying that they are the only ones that can work or start a project, and we can’t. They always say: “You? Who is going to listen to you? Leave it to us men.”

Laura: The biggest obstacle here is the ignorance of the population. Most institutions are centralized in the department’s capital, even though Ataco has 107 villages and most of the population lives in rural areas.

How can women begin to overcome these obstacles?

Jimena: Working together as women, because honestly, there is very little that one can achieve alone. But if we come together to fight for our rights and for ourselves, we can show people that we are capable and we can achieve what we put our mind to, we can change the law.

Laura: We need government institutions to come closer to our rural territories, to be present in the villages and reach the communities. We need strategies like this one. The government needs to reach small villages, visit the people, promote the roels and responsibilities of each entity, and tell us how we can access services related to gender and youth policies.

What benefits do you see for women who participate in these workshops?

Laura: Even though the main topic is rural property, several subjects that reach beyond land titling and restitution have emerged. These spaces have enhanced the ability of women to recognize gender-based violence, to recognize the fundamental work that they fulfill when it comes to caring for their homes and society at large; and especially to understand that the women’s work has not been valued as it should be, that women are instead invisible. The workshops have also taught us about self-care, because knowing about the dynamics of gender based violence allow us to create strategies to take care of ourselves, to decide that we do not want to experience this violence, and question certain practices that were once seen as normal.

The Land for Prosperity Activity created gender and social inclusion guidelines for the implementation of massive formalization efforts that focus on increasing the knowledge of women about land rights and the care economy. In Ataco, this includes a municipal commitment to guarantee the inclusion and participation of women, youth, and ethnic communities in all phases of land formalization.

The massive land formalization campaign, funded by USAID in partnership with the government, has reached and trained nearly 600 people in Ataco, of whom nearly half are women.

What has been the most important lesson that you have learned during the workshops?

Jimena: The workshop has highlighted our rights and taught us to fight for ourselves and support each other. There is a lot of criticism between women, but here they teach us to join forces and work together. As far as land ownership, even though we do not have the documents for the land we live on, there is a chance that it will be ours and the land title will have our names on it. We have been living there for over 10 years, this is the opportunity to have a home of our own.

 What does the term “empowered woman” mean to you?

Aracely: A woman who wants to move forward, a fighter, an entrepreneur, who starts her own projects, goes out, interacts with different people and projects, knocks on doors, asks for help, and in this way brings her village and her family forward.

This series features Women’s Land Rights Champions within USAID to learn more about their work. This month’s Champion is Marcela Chaves of USAID/Colombia.  

Tell us about yourself.

My name is Marcela Chaves and I have worked for USAID/Colombia since 2009. I am a business administrator and have an MBA. I was born in Colombia, moved and grew up in New York, and returned to Colombia many years ago. My professional career started in the private sector. I have been working on land issues with USAID for over ten years now and have fallen in love with land work. I have been able to understand how supporting land rights can make a difference in very complex and challenging environments, and how it can have a positive and transformational impact on rural families in Colombia.

Why are women’s land rights and resource governance important to your work? And to other USAID development work?

Women’s land rights are a central piece of our work in the Rural and Economic Development Office at USAID/Colombia and a cross-cutting issue for our Mission. As part of the support provided to the Colombian state to advance towards more cost efficient land titling in rural areas, and in order to have a better chance to reach all those families that have been waiting for years and sometimes decades to access these titles, securing women’s equal access to these property rights is vital. Leaving women behind is never an option. Besides, research shows that helping women to access their rights to land results in significant benefits to the health and education conditions of their households and increases their ability to invest in agricultural production long-term. Additionally, the only way USAID’s land governance work can be sustainable once assistance ends is to make sure equal rights to land are promoted and that local governments have the necessary capacity to enact sound land governance policies on their own.

What are some of the biggest challenges in helping women secure land rights and what are some things being done to overcome them?

Based on what we have seen so far, there are several challenges to helping women secure land rights, including: 1) institutional barriers that exclude women from obtaining a land title 2) the need to sensitize public officials in the importance of including  women in land titling either as heads of households or jointly as part of a couple, and 3) cultural barriers that prevent women from knowing what their rights are and how to exercise them, among others. To address these challenges, USAID has provided support through two different land programs. The current program is Land for Prosperity. This program includes coming to agreement with the government to use forms that collect women’s information for subsequent title processing, providing training and tools for government officials to better understand the importance of doing so, and working with communities to sensitize all relevant actors about the importance of women’s land rights through tools such as radio soap operas, songs, and community plays that convey these important messages. 

What are some of USAID’s successes in the area of women’s land rights?

One of the main successes has been issuing land titles with the Colombian government in which at least 50% of the beneficiaries are women. A second important success has been demonstrating how women can become more active and participate more in USAID-supported  activities to do massive land titling; the majority of the social leaders supporting parcel sweeps in targeted municipalities are women. Finally, being able to agree on titling methods that include women’s rights and create pathways to process their cases has been an important step forward. 

Anything else you want to share?

Every time we have the chance to go to the field and see the excitement of all the women who access a land title, it fills my heart with joy and makes all the effort worthwhile.  

Cross-posted from IIED. Guest blogger Megan Huth details how USAID is employing a novel approach to ensure that rural women participate in decisions about land and natural resource use in Liberia

In Liberia, in May 2021, the Bluyema Clan’s most outspoken and politically active women gathered to agree who would run for election for the leadership positions of its Community Land Development and Management Committee (hereafter, “the Committee”) — the body responsible for making decisions on land management and use.

Bluyema is nestled in thick forests along the Liberia-Guinea border where, like most tenure systems in Liberia, land rights are based on customary laws derived from local lineage-based governance systems. But the lack of community-led land governance tools has left many rural communities—and women in particular—stripped of their rights to forests or viable agricultural land.

The 2018 Land Rights Act recognized customary land ownership and provided a legal mechanism for rural communities to secure land tenure. The Act requires communities to include women and youth representatives as equal partners in local land governance structures, like the Committee. Despite these legal provisions, discriminatory gender norms prevent women from speaking about and participating in political matters in rural communities like Bluyema. Village leadership roles are almost always held by men.

Reaching Out to Women 

These all-women gatherings to discuss leadership within the Committee were facilitated by the Liberian land rights organization, Sustainable Development Institute (SDI), in partnership with the USAID-funded Integrated Land and Resource Governance (ILRG) program. The discussions are part of a broader strategy to increase the participation of women in community land governance.

In the run-up to the Committee elections, SDI highlighted land experts and civil society leaders on “Radio Life”, a radio program that was broadcast multiple times in communities in Lofa County where Bluyema is located. The radio program provided general information about the customary land governance process and encouraged women to participate in land management bodies, such as the Committee.

“More than anything, the radio show was aimed at men to support women in their quest to engage with the land documentation process,” explains Nora Bowier, SDI Coordinator.

The radio talk show also provided a conduit to reach communities who are not currently involved with customary land documentation and show them that adjacent communities like Bluyema are taking advantage of documentation to secure the future of their land.

In the week prior to Committee elections in Bluyema, Bowier and other SDI coordinators led gender-focused discussions with approximately 30 women. Discussions focused on women’s land rights, women’s participation in land and natural resource management, and strategies to effectively work with male counterparts. The women discussed and decided who should run for the Committee’s leadership roles, while also developing community outreach and campaign strategies. Bowier also worked with each candidate on a one-on-one basis, providing the women with a safe space for open discussions about their concerns and needs.

Just a day before the election, Gbelee Sumo — who decided to run for the position of Chairperson after the all-women gatherings — gave a memorable campaign speech to the community, calling for women to stand up and support each other.

“She stood up to build the confidence of the community,” Bowier recalls. “Gbelee is eager to lead and to represent the voices of women who have been marginalized for generations. She made it clear there is a space where women will sit at the same table with their male counterparts.”

New Outcomes, New Leaders

In June 2021, four women were elected to both the Vice Chairperson and Treasurer leadership positions in the Committees throughout Lofa County. Gbelee Sumo, the leader from Bluyema, became Liberia’s first Committee chairperson. “The project is helping to open the eyes of women who have been placed at the margin of society in terms of decision-making and participation in local government,” says Chairperson Sumo.

Over the past 18 months, USAID partner SDI reached over 300 women from more than 30 rural communities across Liberia. As a result, 60 women are now elected Committee officers in three counties, representing just under 50 percent of the available leadership positions.

Land Stewards

Communities like Bluyema, which have successfully created by-laws and community land governance committees that meet the Land Rights Act’s requirements for women’s participation, can now continue with the land documentation process outlined by Liberia’s Land Authority in a more representative and inclusive way.

When land management committees represent a wider cross-section of the community, they can significantly improve land and natural resource management. Women often know more about boundary lines, because they are the ones engaged in agro-forestry activities like growing food and collecting firewood.

In addition, rural communities rely on logging as their principal means of income, and with an inclusive governance body where women play a key role, logging revenue is more likely to benefit the entire community and not just one person or one family.

“Corruption is being reduced. We have already seen some examples where communities are putting a halt to land grabbing,” says Bowier. “It is now more difficult for a chief to single-handedly come up with a contract between himself and a logging concession.”

Impact Evaluation

USAID has worked to strengthen inclusive land governance in Liberia for more than a decade. A recent impact evaluation of USAID-led customary land interventions shows that this type of governance is novel for many communities, and behavior change does not happen overnight. Continued efforts are needed to engage men as supporters of women’s leadership, ensure that women’s participation is truly meaningful, and avoid risks of backlash and gender-based violence for these new women leaders.

Continuing the work

To provide longevity and sustainability to the efforts and support for the Liberia Land Authority and Liberia’s rural communities, USAID continues to implement land tenure programs across Liberia. In 2021, USAID kicked off the Liberia Land Management Activity, a four-year, $9.4 million project that will build on inclusive management of communal land and promote the formalization of land rights in Liberia, with special consideration for the rights of women and marginalized groups.

 

About the author: Megan Huth is a Senior Associate in Tetra Tech’s Land Tenure and Property Rights sector and the Project Manager for the USAID Integrated Land and Resource Governance (ILRG) program.

Guest Author: Colin Christensen, One Acre Fund

Today, with up to 811 million people going to bed hungry, the world is well off track from our collective SDG2 goal of achieving “zero hunger” by 2030. As climate change makes weather patterns more unpredictable, an estimated 78 million more people will face chronic hunger in 2050 relative to a baseline where there is no climate variability. With hunger rates rising globally, it is critical to consider the role of securing land rights as an important but often overlooked tool to help combat the fight against hunger. 

Today, nearly 1 billion people globally have insecure rights to land, a great proportion of whom are smallholder farmers. Empowering smallholder farmers to grow more food has often offered the most direct path to solving the hunger crisis, given that hundreds of millions of smallholders around the world produce 60 to 80 percent of the already limited domestic food supply in many countries. However, smallholder farmers face a variety of challenges not only stemming from environmental constraints (such as precipitation, temperature and extreme events) but also from a range of systemic barriers that limit their ability to grow enough food. Farmers often lack sufficient cash to buy needed inputs like fertilizer and seeds and adequate credit for banks to lend to them. In addition, input distribution networks, which can be geographically limited, can fail to reach more remote areas where many smallholders live. Information networks that are critical for farmers to make key decisions about planting often lack information on weather patterns, soil health, and market demand to help maximize the return on their investment. 

The good news is that through increasing access to financing, input distribution, technology, and training, many of these dynamics and investment constraints can be partially overcome. Still, these “traditional” interventions often depend on, and can even overlook what could be a key leverage point to ending hunger: securing land rights. At One Acre Fund, we have seen preliminary indications that the farmers we serve invest significantly more in land that they own compared to land that they rent. For example, a survey with our clients in Rwanda found that these farmers were more likely to apply techniques that would increase their soil productivity on land that they owned compared to land that they rented. From the survey, 73 percent of respondents said that they only applied agricultural lime on land they owned, and 82 percent said they only engaged in terracing (a technique that increases farmability and land productivity of sloped fields) on land they owned. In these cases, maize yields were 30 percent higher on owned land compared to rented land. In addition, the same survey found that 94 percent of farmers planted trees only on land that they owned, which highlights the potential value of land ownership to meeting important goals related to climate adaptation and mitigation.  

One Acre Fund has just launched a multi-year project with Landesa to further explore the relationship between food security and land tenure and investigate possible solutions to addressing key gaps in land tenure. Finding these solutions is critical: one World Bank report found that 90 percent of Africa’s rural land remains untitled today, and is “susceptible to land grabbing, expropriation without fair compensation and corruption.” Given these challenges—which are even more dire for women farmers who face higher rates of exclusion from formal titles—it makes perfect sense that a smallholder farmer might be reluctant to invest in what should be her most important asset.

Solving this problem of securing land tenure and formal property rights is certainly not an easy task, as it involves navigating some complex political dynamics and cultural norms. But just because it is difficult does not mean it should be ignored. Today, the hundreds of millions of hungry people around the world deserve as comprehensive an effort as possible to achieve a zero-hunger future, and these efforts should not overlook the importance of secure land rights. Addressing this problem is a critical piece of  our anti-hunger tool-kit.

This series features Women’s Land Rights Champions within USAID to learn more about their work This month’s Champion is Catherine Tembo, Ph.D., USAID/Zambia’s Natural Resources Specialist in the Economic Development Office. 

Tell us about yourself.

I currently serve as USAID/Zambia’s Natural Resources Specialist in the Economic Development Office. My work involves providing technical program support, Interagency, donor, and host country government coordination on sustainable landscapes. With the understanding that secure land and resource rights are a cornerstone of economic growth and poverty reduction, part of my work involves strengthening land and resource governance for economic growth, and food security. Through my work, I support initiatives that help reduce deforestation, increase sustainable development, and a range of other natural and community resource benefits.

During my ten years of working with the Agency, I have had an opportunity to manage land- related programming. I have supported USAID’s assistance on land-related issues as the Activity Manager for the Tenure and Global Climate Change (TGCC) activity, which aimed to increase tenure security while also supporting agroforestry extension services. I have also served as Activity Manager for the Integrated Land and Resource Governance (ILRG) activity, which is undertaking initiatives to support land tenure security in Zambia, as well as improved planning, customary governance, women’s economic empowerment and natural resource management. 

Why are women’s land rights and resource governance important to your work? And to other USAID development work?

Women’s land rights and resource governance are critical as they provide economic security for families and communities. Generally women have been known to contribute a greater proportion of their agricultural and natural resource based income to their family and improve food security. An insecure household is a threat to sustainable natural resource management.

What are some of the biggest challenges in helping women secure land rights and what are some things being done to overcome them?

My work of promoting women’s land rights has not been without challenges. Women have been marginalized for a long time and it is only now that they are trying to get out of their cocoons. With our support and working in partnership with the Zambian Government and the traditional leadership, we are seeing an increase in women owning land. In addition, more women are now taking up leadership positions in various natural resources management committees.

What are some of USAID’s successes in the area of women’s land rights?

We have recorded a number of successes with regards to women’s land rights. Traditional leaders are shifting gender norms and strengthening women’s land rights. We have Zambian Chiefs championing gender equality in land and natural resources governance. We have supported Zambia’s National Land Policy, which strives to ensure that 50% of the available land for alienation is allocated to women and encourages Chiefs to allocate land to women, and we have supported the development of customary gender guidelines. We have supported capacity-building activities focused on gender integration and community natural resource governance in Zambia, particularly with civil society and private sector partners. Furthermore, we have worked closely with traditional leaders (both men and women) to open them up to being champions and promoting women’s land rights. 

Anything else you want to share?

I must say that I have enjoyed every bit of working on land related matters here at the Agency. I appreciate every aspect of the work that I do, especially since my work includes empowering women in land and improving resource governance – this always puts a smile on my face.

This blog originally appeared on Climatelinks. 

By Daniel Evans

Global sustainability initiatives like the UN Sustainable Development Goals have a land problem: How to achieve multiple land-intensive goals when there is only so much land to go around. Urgent needs for land, especially in developing countries, include protecting and restoring carbon-rich forests, conserving habitats to preserve the diversity of life on Earth, and producing enough food to sustain human populations.

With agriculture driving deforestation, global climate protection and biodiversity conservation goals seem to collide with the drive to produce more food. Researchers warn of an impending “food security-biodiversity-climate” crisis and “looming land scarcity.”

Land-use planning can help meet these challenges. When successful, land-use plans allocate land efficiently and equitably. Planners assess the suitability of land parcels for different uses, put available land to its “best” use, meet diverse needs of multiple stakeholders, and create a lasting governance framework for people to resolve conflicts.

But how effective is land-use planning? How often does it work as a tool to sustainably manage land? More specifically, how effectively does national land-use planning prevent agricultural expansion into forests?

A new paper from the ProLand project addresses this question by reviewing available evidence: National Land-Use Planning to Prevent Deforestation at the Agricultural Frontier: A Synthesis of the Evidence and a Case Study from Cameroon.

The paper finds that land-use planning can be effective, but there have been only a few cases where evidence shows that it has worked, largely because few developing countries have established the foundations needed for national land-use planning to succeed.

Cameroon is a notable exception. Cameroon’s land-use planning efforts to protect its rainforest reduced deforestation in a 2.4-million-hectare area where agricultural expansion is the principal threat. Cameroon’s experience highlights steps that other governments should consider taking, as well as common challenges that practitioners are likely to encounter, and that donors should anticipate.

Ultimately, the paper identifies five important conditions for land-use planning success:

• Land-use planning should be authorized by laws or regulations with mechanisms to enforce compliance.
• Land-use planning should be based on information that permits a thorough assessment of land resources in the planning area.
• Participants should have technical and managerial capacity to design and implement land-use plans.
• Financial resources for planning and implementation are essential.
• Land-use planning should include broad participation of multiple stakeholders.

The paper also addresses key challenges. Successful land-use planning critically depends on good governance. But many governments in developing countries have low capacity to design land-use plans or assure adherence to the rule of law and transparent and equitable implementation. Land-use planning might require decades of investment supported by donors, reveal broad weaknesses in governance, and bring to light divergent objectives between donors and the governments they support.

National land-use planning can help achieve multiple, land-intensive development goals, but development practitioners should be prepared for a long, costly process and be ready to provide consistent support for good governance.

An innovative USAID-PepsiCo partnership is supporting women potato farmers in India to see farming as a future

Last year, if you had told Bulti Porel that she would become an official potato supplier for multinational food, snack, and beverage corporation PepsiCo and expand her farming enterprise in the process, she would have been incredulous. Women are not generally recognized as farmers in West Bengal, India’s second largest potato-producing state. People see them as day laborers, and men see them as simply ‘helpers’ on family farms. Customarily in this region, women do not control land or make decisions about production, and are not included in farming skills training. As a result, independent farming is not a future many West Bengali women can look forward to.

This is changing for some women, thanks to a U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and PepsiCo partnership that is making the business case for women’s empowerment in the potato supply chain in West Bengal. Over the past two years, the partnership developed the capacity of PepsiCo’s local staff to empower women by supporting them with access to land and by providing them with the skills and knowledge to recognize and enhance their contributions to potato farming. PepsiCo’s sustainable farming training materials were adapted for women farmers through a gender-responsive and participatory approach to language and concepts.

Bulti Porel acquired skills through a series of agronomy training sessions tailored for women in 2019 that encouraged her to increase the area of her land and grow more potatoes in the second season. More than becoming a potato supplier, Bulti is increasing her knowledge of sustainable agriculture practices and making the decisions about what happens on her farm.

“My husband feels that I am taking care of farming activities, and now we buy seeds in my name. This is a great recognition I received from my family and this has happened only because of the training I received,” she said.

Potato farmer Namita Khan said that attending the training sessions gave her greater confidence to independently manage her potato farming and led her to encourage other women in her village to attend. Intentionally reaching women in the supply chain has a multiplying effect since women are more prone to share newly-acquired skills with their family members, neighbors, and fellow laborers.

Assisting Women Access Land

Access to land is a challenge for women in West Bengal, particularly those from the scheduled tribes and castes or religious minorities. The partnership is addressing this barrier by supporting women’s groups to lease farmland to produce potatoes and enter the PepsiCo value chain as independent suppliers. 

“I was not comfortable and told her to stay away from this activity. How is it possible that women can farm on their own?” Azijul Rahaman, a husband asked.

At first, Rahaman was apprehensive about his wife, Anwar Begum, participating in a land leasing group and tried to dissuade her. The local male aggregator, who consolidates potatoes from a range of producers to supply larger quantities to PepsiCo, helped persuade him to trust his wife and her ambitions, showing the importance of engaging influential men in the supply chain to champion women’s empowerment.

Since these discussions, Begum and her group, Eid Mubarak, have already made two potato harvests and embraced their role as formal suppliers. In fact, in 2020-2021, Eid Mubarak managed the first and only women-led PepsiCo demonstration farm in West Bengal, showcasing agricultural technology, sustainable farming practices, and women’s leadership in farming.

Promising Results in Empowering Women

Over the past two years USAID and PepsiCo have delivered training to over 1,000 women farmers on climate-smart, regenerative agriculture practices. With increased access to information and resources, women have gained confidence, mobility, collective agency, income, and decision-making power in their families. 

The partnership is doing more than empowering women farmers, it is shifting discriminatory gender norms that for generations have kept women out of the formal economy. Couples like Bulti and her husband are setting powerful positive examples in their villages that women can manage farming operations and men value their wives as equal partners. The perceptions of women’s roles in potato farming are changing in households and communities, and women are increasingly recognized as farmers in their own right.

USAID and PepsiCo will continue to build upon these results. Over the next two years, the partnership will reach more women farmers with regenerative agriculture technical training and support more women’s land leasing groups. The partnership is also creating opportunities for farming couples to reflect on gender roles, supporting women-led demonstration farms, and promoting women’s participation in male-dominated spaces such as seed distribution and visits to PepsiCo factories. These activities are critical to shift discriminatory gender norms and model positive behaviors that promote gender equality in the supply chain.

Empowering women in West Bengal has opened an important pathway to expand PepsiCo’s farming supply base. The four-year USAID partnership will build upon these promising results and continue to demonstrate that empowering women can promote women’s agency, increase income for families, and help PepsiCo meet its economic, social, and environmental goals. 

A factsheet with Key Results of the first two years of the USAID-PepsiCo partnership in West Bengal is available here.  

Read the story of Shyamal Pal, Potato Aggregator and Long-Time Champion of Women’s Empowerment.