Hundreds of families in Bajo Cauca take on beekeeping to improve their living conditions and contribute to the licit economic development of the region.
The Bajo Cauca Priority
Bajo Cauca region is an example of all the negative things that are read in the news about Colombia: violence, illicit crops, illegal mining, and criminal groups feeding off these activities and disputing control over the territory. The Government of Colombia (GOC) has prioritized the region —which is located in the northeast corner of Antioquia— to implement a package of comprehensive development activities known as PDET (Development Program with a Territorial Approach). PDET interventions seek to build and promote peace and ‘stabilization’ by implementing the Comprehensive Rural Reform established in the Peace Agreement with the FARC.
In Bajo Cauca, USAID is working in line with the government’s PDET strategy to increase opportunities for economic development through private sector investment and the presence of government services and actors, such as land administration entities, which are fundamental to strengthening the basis of trust of the citizenry in state leaders.
The Community is Abuzz
Through its Land for Prosperity Activity, USAID brokered a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) in the honey value chain that seeks to promote beekeeping as a sustainable and legal economic activity with the potential to benefit rural inhabitants in seven municipalities in Bajo Cauca. The PPP, which is valued at an estimated $5 billion pesos (USD$1.3mn) links 26 producer associations with training to improve honey production and processing. Under the partnership, the producer associations —which represent 631 families—have the opportunity to market their honey with local conglomeration of honey producers, Campo Dulce.
A Forest of Opportunity
Bajo Cauca’s climatic conditions are ideal for the production of honey and other products derived from bees. Beekeeping gives producers the chance to achieve economic potential in less time than crops like cacao, which can take an average of five years to reach harvest levels that generate returns. After setting up beehives, it will take just a couple of months for the first honey harvest, and beekeeping requires a relatively low level of effort in terms of maintenance. In addition, bees play a key role in pollination, thus contributing to the preservation of ecosystems.
Campo Dulce made a commitment to work with all 29 producer associations and purchase 100 percent of their honey.
“USAID arrived just when Bajo Cauca needed it most. Now, it is important to recognize their roles and work hand-in-hand with these communities, the companies, and producer associations who are already involved in beekeeping.”-Sandra Márquez, manager of Campo Dulce.
Bee in the Forum
USAID’s principle role is facilitator. Bajo Cauca’s security complexities make coordination and teamwork even more critical in promoting a successful strategy that can provide licit economic alternatives to rural families, improve their livelihoods, and contribute to the region’s economic development. USAID is the catalyst that brings local, regional, and national government actors, the private sector, producer associations, and communities together. To make these new relationships sustainable, the PPP actors have created a Beekeeping Roundtable that meets quarterly to follow up on commitments and the needs of producers.
“The coordination process has been easy because all the participants are interested in the same thing.” – Henry Hernández, Beekeeping Roundtable coordinator and representative from the regional Government of Antioquia.
Women Stepping
Lilia Castro, a single mother in the municipality of Cáceres, sees beekeeping as an activity that can help her create more income requiring just a part of her time so she can attend to other household tasks. Through the honey PPP, Lilia and other women in the region are receiving training on how to create and maintain their hives to offer higher quality honey to Colombia’s market.
“My son used to be afraid of bees, but now he goes with me to feed them. He also wants to learn from this job, so that is why he is going to be part of the training,” Lilia assured.
On March 8, 2021, International Women’s Day (IWD) marks a day where people across the world celebrate women’s achievements, raise awareness against bias, and take action to forge a more gender-inclusive world. USAID and PepsiCo recently partnered in West Bengal, India to support women in the PepsiCo potato supply chain in an effort to equalize their access to essential resources as their male counterparts, which is critical to agricultural success.
The USAID-PepsiCo partnership is designed to engage women as critical partners by empowering them, and thus challenging and transforming prevailing gender norms in the region, to build greater resilience in these rural farming communities and improve yields and performance in agricultural supply chains.
In West Bengal, India women are rarely seen as farmers, even though they typically spend as much time as their husbands working on the farm: preparing fields, planting seeds, harvesting crops, and managing animals.
“We knew almost nothing except cutting seeds. Now we have learned everything about farming. Additionally, we have learned about dealing with people like tractor operators, landowners, and how to do accounting.” – Anwara Begam
When Anwara Begam and her women’s group, Eid Mubarak, were approached in October 2019 by the staff of a new joint initiative funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and PepsiCo to participate in potato farming as lead farmers, the group enthusiastically jumped at the chance. This was the first time many of these women had the opportunity to participate in agricultural extension; they received training and knowledge on a broad range of topics to apply to their agricultural practices to increase their yields and productivity. Through the support of this partnership, the group participated in a land-leasing activity to identify land and negotiate leasing terms; it was the first time many of these women had ever accessed farmland on their own.
With reliable land access, Anwara Begam and the women in the group attended agronomy training, improved their skills in potato farming and financial literacy, and became formal contributors to the PepsiCo potato value chain. During extension training sessions, Anwara learned how to improve her crop yields through land preparation, seed treatment, soil health and nutrition management, and pest and disease control. In its first year, the USAID-PepsiCo initiative conducted technical training with 48 women’s groups, bringing over 500 women into PepsiCo’s supply chain.
Using information from the agronomy training, Anwara recently recognized the signs of potato blight on her family’s farm and knew what measures to take to prevent it from spreading; however, her husband initially did not believe her. While he questioned her knowledge, she advocated that their family take swift action, and her initiative ended up saving her family’s crop.
Empowered with her enhanced skills and knowledge, Anwara is currently talking with other women about the positive benefits of improving women’s knowledge in agricultural practices, and at the same time, her bolstered ability to advocate and influence others has built her personal confidence and leadership skills.
Invaluable Women
The partnership’s initial success shows that empowering women with the knowledge, land, and access to PepsiCo’s value chain directly benefits the women and their families, while also meeting PepsiCo’s business goals to expand their supplier network and increase productivity.
“For the very first time, I have taken an effort to provide seeds on credit to women farmers. I want to see them taking responsibility and getting empowered,” says Pintu Ghosh, a potato buyer in West Bengal who participated in the USAID PepsiCo gender-awareness training.
PepsiCo agronomist Abdul Alim attended gender sensitization workshops and discussions on the role of women in agriculture alongside over 30 other PepsiCo staff. In his native village of Bhagaldighi, West Bengal, Abdul and PepsiCo aggregators have already hired women to sort and grade potatoes—jobs typically done by men.
Since Abdul’s training, seven women with experience growing PepsiCo potatoes participated in sorting and grading opportunities, where each worker can earn up to $4 per day. This pay is more than twice what a woman makes in an eight-hour day as an agricultural laborer, and the job offers women more flexibility to work around their household responsibilities, as they are paid on output rather than the number of hours worked.
Since the partnership began in mid-2019, USAID and PepsiCo have provided potato agronomy training for more than 1,000 women, as well as gender equality and women’s empowerment training to all PepsiCo local staff in West Bengal. From the partnership’s initial gender assessment, it was clear that economically empowering women requires more than teaching improved farming practices. Building on the success of the first year, the partnership will begin implementing household and community level dialogues on gender norms that hinder women’s access to and control over resources and income and further recognition of their role as farmers. Interventions that aim to change harmful gender norms, strategically engage men and community leaders, and increase women’s personal agency and empowerment are critical to mitigating unintended consequences, including gender-based violence.
Reporting from the field has shown that for Anwara Begam and the women of the Eid Mubarak group, access to land and knowledge provided by the USAID PepsiCo partnership led to increased self-confidence and recognition from their community, and they now see themselves as valuable potato farmers who contribute to their families’ livelihoods and the PepsiCo supply chain. This demonstrates that empowering women makes social and economic sense both for businesses and for rural communities.
Scaling through PepsiCo Agricultural Value Chains
Building on this initial success in West Bengal, PepsiCo and USAID are expanding the partnership through a Global Development Alliance (GDA) focused on proving the business case for women’s economic empowerment in Colombia, Pakistan, and Vietnam, and further into India in Uttar Pradesh.
The GDA will target PepsiCo farming communities with a gender-transformative approach that tests and pilots women’s economic empowerment solutions on PepsiCo demonstration farms, as well as scales up promising practices demonstrated in the initial project in West Bengal. The partnership aims to ensure that women farmers and workers benefit from being directly or indirectly involved within PepsiCo’s supply chains while also being empowered within their households and communities. Integrating women’s economic empowerment into PepsiCo’s sustainable agriculture approach will strengthen livelihoods and community resilience while improving the performance and sustainability of the supply chain.
PepsiCo will use data and insights from this partnership with USAID to show that investing in women makes business sense and should be scaled within PepsiCo’s supply chains and adopted by other leading companies. Read more about our work in West Bengal here and the GDA here.
This blog was originally published in USAID Medium.
With a seat at the table, women contribute to decision making on natural resources and climate solutions
Frances D. Blanyon is a mechanical engineer and plant operator at Mt. Coffee Hydro Power Plant in Liberia. / Liberia Electricity Corporation
One of the greatest threats to our global community is climate change, and research shows women are more vulnerable than men to its consequences. Women and children are 14 times more likely than men to die due to climate disasters such as droughts and floods, and they make up 80 percent of those displaced by climate change. Climate change can also exacerbate gender-based violence, including early and forced child marriage.
But women and girls are not just victims of climate change ― they are leading the way in designing and implementing climate change solutions, and their valuable and unique knowledge on natural resource management and adaptation strategies are critical. The tools we use to combat climate change are more effective when women are meaningfully empowered at the household, community, national, and international levels. Fueled by a women’s economic empowerment fund at USAID, here are five ways we are empowering women in the fight against climate change:
1-Advancing Gender in the Environment
The Advancing Gender in the Environment (AGENT) partnership between USAID and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature has recognized women as agents of change in the climate change sector for nearly a decade. Through AGENT, we conduct research and publish our findings on how climate change affects women, and help countries develop climate change gender action plans to ensure climate solutions are more effective and inclusive. One of our recent studies found that climate change, state fragility, and gender inequality are interconnected issues and that USAID and other development partners should approach these issues together so solutions are more effective and can have impact in all three areas.
With USAID’s support, AGENT is working to increase gender equality and women’s empowerment in the fisheries sector, where women make up nearly half the workforce, but their ability to advance economically is limited. This exclusion holds women back from earning income and reaching new markets, and can thwart efforts to increase the sustainability of the fishery overall.
Through this partnership, USAID has supported knowledge and tools that have helped build the capacities of over 25,000 women and men policy makers and practitioners around the world on how gender and environment are linked, so they can create more sustainable and equitable policies and programs to fight climate change.
2-SERVIR
Two newly-designed Nestlé Aldo Dispensers at the Wala-Usik (“nothing wasted”) convenience store of Nanay Lilian Gordoncillo in Bacolod City, Philippines. The store is testing refillable product delivery modes that will reduce the use of plastic sachets. / USAID Municipal Waste Recycling Program
A 16-year partnership between USAID and NASA, SERVIR supports local decision-makers across the developing world to use geospatial technology to manage the effects of climate change. SERVIR’s data helps countries anticipate droughts, floods and forest fires, so officials can respond quickly before lives are lost.
Since 2019, USAID has worked to ensure SERVIR’s geospatial services consider the ways climate change affects women in particular and design solutions that specifically meet their needs, such as ensuring that disaster information is shared through communication channels that women are able to easily access. We also have created opportunities for women to work and grow their careers in the geospatial sciences workforce by providing technical and leadership skills training and mentorship opportunities. A more diverse and well-equipped workforce can better tackle the problems and priorities of different types of community members that SERVIR and its partners serve.
3-Clean Cities, Blue Ocean
Plastic waste pollution doesn’t just spread microplastics around the globe — it contributes to climate change by clogging mangroves that help regulate the ecosystem, and releasing high quantities of carbon dioxide when incinerated.
USAID’s Clean Cities, Blue Ocean program halts ocean plastic pollution in rapidly urbanizing areas of Asia and Latin America that contribute to the estimated 8 million metric tons of plastic that flow into the ocean each year. As part of this program, we are investing in new business approaches led by women entrepreneurs that reduce single-use plastics, and we are supporting the economic advancement of women who work as informal waste collectors.
Blessing Oyeniyi and Adeyemi Opeyemi, the first female line workers at Eko Electricity Distribution Company (EKEDC) in Nigeria. / EKEDC
4-Engendering Utilities
Effective and high-functioning utilities are critical to achieving climate change goals, particularly by introducing clean and renewable energy to reduce emissions and encouraging the efficient use of resources in the communities they serve.
USAID’s Engendering Utilities program creates economic opportunities for women working in traditionally male-dominated energy and water utilities, ultimately strengthening utility performance. The program has trained over 6,000 women to advance their careers, and over 1,000 women have been hired in the energy and water sectors, including in management and technical positions.
5-Women’s Land Rights
Women in Mozambique examine a map. USAID works in the country to support reforms around women’s land rights. / Sandra Coburn for USAID
When women have secure land rights, their resilience to climate change increases, as does their communities’ resilience overall. But women who rely on customary land tenure systems that disadvantage them are the most impacted by climate change, especially as forest and water sources are depleted and soil on land degrades. Without secure land rights, they are less able to prevent overgrazing of pastureland and deforestation, which worsen greenhouse gas emissions.
USAID works to implement practices such as joint titling and land registration to ensure women have secure land rights. USAID works in Ghana, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, and India to support legal and land resource governance reforms around women’s land rights.
The climate crisis is acute and shows no sign of abating. Economically empowering women leverages their innovation and expertise and enables their transformational power to increase climate resilience. With a seat at the table, women contribute to decision making on natural resources and advocate for climate solutions that meet their needs and are more likely to be adopted by all people — benefiting our shared planet and our global community.
About the Authors
Corinne Hart is the Senior Gender Advisor for Energy and Environment and Georgia Hartman is a Technical Advisor for Gender and Environment, both in USAID’s Bureau for Development, Democracy, and Innovation.
The same gender biases that prevent women from holding secure land rights also exclude them from having an equal voice in decision-making about land at all levels. When women’s and men’s voices are both well-represented, on the other hand, strategies for land and resource use reflect the needs and collective wisdom of the whole community. This is especially important in the face of growing resource scarcity, and the kinds of crises spurred by climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic.
WHY WOMEN’S LAND RIGHTS MATTER
Ownership and control over assets that support income are central to women’s economic and social empowerment and their ability to contribute to their communities and countries. For many women, the most valuable of these assets are the land and natural resources they depend on to make a living, provide for their families, and invest in their communities. If women had the same access to productive resources as men, farm output would increase by 20 to 30 percent.
USAID, through the Integrated Land and Resource Governance (ILRG) program and the Communications, Evidence and Learning (CEL) project, is strengthening women’s rights to land and resources so that women may leverage these rights toward concrete economic, social, and political opportunities.
In honor of International Women’s Day, here are six ways USAID is moving forward with our partners to strengthen women’s land and resource rights:
SUPPORTING LAW AND POLICY REFORMS. Reforming legal frameworks to establish women’s rights to land and natural resources is one of the most effective ways to empower women at scale. USAID is working with governments and customary leaders at the national and local levels to adopt and implement laws and policies that promote women’s land rights. USAID is also raising awareness and providing legal literacy and access to justice for women, so they are better able to claim and benefit from existing rights.
GENDER INTEGRATION IN LAND DOCUMENTATION. USAID is promoting gender integration in systematic land documentation processes led by governments, civil society, and private sector actors, ensuring that women’s land rights are considered in all steps, from planning to final documentation of individual or community land. Awareness-raising and communications activities are encouraging women to register their rights.
GENDER NORMS CHANGE. USAID is providing training and promoting dialogues with customary leaders and communities on harmful gender norms and biases that hinder women from gaining rights and control over land and natural resources. USAID is also promoting gender norms change within households to enhance women’s participation in decision-making, promote collaboration within families, and reduce gender-based violence.
AGENCY-BASED EMPOWERMENT FOR WOMEN. USAID is providing women with the skills, knowledge, and resources to meaningfully participate in decision-making and governance related to land and natural resources and to engage in agricultural value chains. Increased agency enables women to leverage secure land rights to access financing, agricultural extension, and employment in the wildlife and forestry sectors.
PRIVATE SECTOR ENGAGEMENT. USAID is partnering with national and multinational companies to develop policies for gender-responsive land-based investment and business practices that reach, benefit, and empower women in different agricultural value chains. USAID is contributing to the growing evidence base on the business case for women’s economic empowerment, which shows that including women in value chains has positive impacts not only for women, their families, and communities, but also for key business performance indicators like agricultural yield, productivity, and quality of production.
GATHERING AND DISSEMINATING EVIDENCE, BEST PRACTICES, AND LESSONS LEARNED. USAID’s extensive impact and performance evaluations of past and ongoing projects are producing a rich body of evidence to inform governments, donors, and other stakeholders in developing new policies and programs to effectively strengthen women’s rights and translate them into sustainable social and economic empowerment. USAID will continue to share its research widely through new communications and learnings platforms, so as to be readily accessible by partners and stakeholders working toward better land and resource rights for women.
About the author: Jennifer Duncan is the Senior Land Tenure Specialist on the USAID Land Evidence for Economic Rights, Gender and Empowerment (LEVERAGE) Activity.
In Zambia, women and men are making the choice to challenge cultural and social barriers to women’s participation in natural resource management
When it comes to Zambia’s natural resource governance structures, the cultural perception that ‘only men can be the leaders’ excludes many capable women from leadership roles. Women’s interests and priorities are under-represented, and women can do little to change this from the sidelines. Due to gender norms, most of the work and decision-making tends to be assigned to men, who are the only ones thought to have the competencies required for wildlife operations.
Zambia’s wildlife policy entrusts power to communities to establish Community Resource Boards (CRBs) to manage their natural resources in Game Management Areas, which are protected areas buffering national parks; but with no gender focus, women community leaders continue to be ignored within community management and governance structures. To be elected to the CRB, women have to compete with men on an uneven playing field. Few are willing to stand for election, but when they do, they face many barriers limiting their chances of success, such as lack of resources for campaigns, lack of acceptance, time constraints to campaign, and risks of gender-based violence (GBV). If they succeed, the same challenges continue to impact their meaningful participation. Asserting themselves within traditionally male-dominated structures exposes them further to the risks of GBV within their family and communities.
In Zambia, there are 77 CRBs nationwide, and only a few have ever elected women to leadership positions. A similar scenario exists in the forestry sector with Community Forest Management Groups.
Strategies to increase women’s participation
In 2020, USAID partners Frankfurt Zoological Society and the Zambia CRB Association tested a pilot to use the CRB elections as an entry point to increase women’s participation in four CRBs located in the North Luangwa ecosystem: Mukungule, Nabwalya, Chikwa and Chifunda. Turns out women make really great candidates for leadership positions. Today, one out of four CRB leadership positions in the target CRBs is occupied by a woman, and the Village Action Groups (VAGs) that support CRBs increased women’s participation to 50%. Just three years ago, women barely had any representation at either level. Read more about this pilot in the Outcomes and Lessons Learned Report and Brief.
To observe International Women’s Day, USAID is profiling the community voices of those individuals who stood up to challenge existing structural barriers and gender norms to increase women’s involvement in wildlife community governance leadership roles.
Inspiring New Leaders
Nancy Mutemba, Community Liaison Assistant and Gender Focal Person, Frankfurt Zoological Society “It seemed a difficult task to convince headpersons and women to do something that they did not believe in, and I was scared to preach to them something that seems to go against their culture. I worried about how they would receive the message and how it was going to impact our relationship going forward.”
“Before the meeting I knew very little about the role of the CRBs and that as a woman I could be involved. When I heard that Chief Mukungule was asking women to join the CRB, I decided to try because I knew the Chief’s word is respected.”
Unwilling to buy votes, Catherine Chatata – Nabwalya CRB
“I now believe that even as a woman who has no money for campaigning, I can be voted for. I will work even harder to convince people in the next round of elections and my achievements in the VAG will campaign for me.”
Without Women there is no Tradition, Chief Chikwa – Chikwa CRB Patron
“Our history and our tradition are not without women. Women have held honorable positions in our tradition system, including that of a chief; before me there were women. Discriminating against women is not from our tradition but individual selfishness.Women deserve to be leaders of our communities,” he says.
“Men want to lead over you and find it difficult to respect women in top positions. If not careful, you spend time dealing with unnecessary conflicts rather than serving the people. I just have to be tactical to maintain unity,” she says.
Every day, Zambia’s Game Management Areas are patrolled by joint teams of Department of National Parks and Wildlife (DNPW) Wildlife Officers and Community Scouts sourced from local communities. These Community Scout jobs are disproportionately held by men due in part to gender stereotypes that only men are capable of performing the duties of protecting wildlife and forest law enforcement.
To change this perception, USAID Zambia is working with conservation NGOs, the DNPW, community resource management groups, and the private sector to change the gender balance, and create a pipeline of female Community Scouts who can demonstrate the leadership role that rural women can play in effective natural resource management.
With USAID support, the DNPW is examining and adapting its training program and practices to increase the opportunities for women to become Community Scouts, while maintaining course rigor. USAID worked with DNPW trainers to analyze physical fitness requirements, as well as challenge stereotypes that can disadvantage women on the job; for example, assumptions that female scouts will take on an increased proportion of cleaning and cooking work during operations. Scouts and DNPW trainers are also encouraged to reflect on the risks that women face, such as retribution from their families or communities for leaving their home responsibilities while on two-week patrols.
Zambia’s conservation community is getting behind the initiative. In the past two training courses, the number of female Community Scouts sponsored by Zambia’s conservation NGOs and private sector game ranches has increased dramatically. In the latest group of 46 scouts, 50% were female, which is a first for the DNPW. “Wildlife protection is often perceived to be a man’s role. At Conservation Lower Zambezi (CLZ), we believe in equality and recognize the value women bring in protecting our natural resources. For this reason CLZ is currently investing in the training of Zambia’s first all-female Community Scout Unit,” says Ian Stevenson from CLZ. Hassan Sachedina from BioCarbon Partners notes: “We see women leading, pioneering, and catalyzing at all levels in the critical fight for biodiversity protection and wildlife habitat conservation in Zambia. Across 13 Chiefdoms, BCP has supported the training of 29 female Community Scouts out of 105 Community Scouts that BCP funds. We are really proud to be striving for and creating strong female role models for future generations.”
These efforts are not only changing gender perceptions but putting rural women on a new career path: becoming a Community Scout is the first step towards increasing the number of women taking up employment in the male-dominated wildlife sector. Community Scouts who excel in the job have higher chances of becoming a government Wildlife Police Officer.
“We are of the opinion that we need to reorient mindsets towards the concept that being a Community Scout is a career in itself for motivated young men and women, with opportunity for development, no matter what their education level,” explains Moses Nyoni from the Nature Conservancy.
USAID will continue following the progress of the Community Scout selection and training process over the coming years to support gender integration at the DNPW and ensure the young women community scouts advance in their careers.
A Community Scout Spreads her Wings
“At first I thought I couldn’t do it, but I have done it! I am excited with great expectations! And I am soaring higher and higher!”
After dropping out of college due to financial difficulties, 23-yearold Lisa Siamusantu had no job and started selling vegetables at the community market with hopes of raising enough money to go back to college one day. One day, she saw an advertisement in the community newspaper for Community Scout training and she applied.
“All my friends discouraged me and said that I was not strong enough, but the advert said they wanted women too,” Lisa says.
She joined a scout training camp sponsored by Conservation Lower Zambezi in December 2020 in the Lower Zambezi National Park and is expected to graduate in March, three months later. Coming from a community where people believe Community Scout jobs are only for men, Lisa began to see herself as a trailblazer. She is excited about the opportunity to be part of the conservation team, and the experience has readjusted her views of traditional gender roles.
“The way I viewed the Community Scout career and the way I viewed myself have changed. I used to see it as a career for men, only those who are very strong, but being here makes me realize that anyone can do it. This changes everything, my mindset and attitude,” she explains. And for those friends who discouraged her and for Zambia’s young women, she has a message.
“Do not accept or embrace beliefs that downgrade you as women and discourage you from trying. The reality is a woman can do anything a man can. If I have done it, so you can.”
The pandemic has shown the Colombian government how structural land issues continue to hamper rural development.
Many rural health clinics in Colombia do not have registered land titles.
Colombia’s hospitals have been challenged due to Covid-19, and while the government rushes to strengthen the country’s healthcare system, intensive care unit occupancy remains high throughout the pandemic.
The crisis has led many leaders to recognize that behind the draconian measures to curb infection, there are fundamental problems that undermine Colombia’s public service delivery and prosperity, such as issues with land administration and property formalization.
In the midst of a health crisis, the nation’s rural health centers are becoming more and more crucial as the virus reaches isolated areas. Thousands of families are a one or two-day trip from a hospital, so rural health clinics play a vital role in providing intermediate care as well as ambulance services to regional centers with specialized professionals. But many of these rural clinics, which belong to municipal governments, have never been formalized or indexed in Colombia’s national property registry.
In Tumaco, where Covid-19 made headlines early on in the pandemic, there are 80 rural health clinics. But 80% of Tumaco’s parcels are informal and unregistered, so Tumaco’s mayor, María Emilsen Angulo, who has been working hard to mobilize support for Tumaco’s hospitals, can do little for health clinics in rural areas that do not even have a registered land title. This year, USAID and the Colombian government have scheduled to begin massive formalization efforts in Tumaco.
Titling Rural Health Clinics
The USAID-funded Land for Prosperity Activity is assisting Tumaco’s mayor to make land issues a priority over the next four years. With USAID support, the municipality’s Territorial Development Plan has earmarked funds to push land formalization to the forefront of public policy. Tumaco is also strengthening its Municipal Land Office, where a team of legal experts specialized in land have begun looking at which parcels can be formalized in the name of the municipality without having to hire expensive professional services.
“USAID has the funds that we don’t have. Plus, they already has the experience of rolling out a massive formalization and cadaster update pilot in Ovejas, Sucre, so here in Tumaco, we won’t have to improvise. USAID already knows the best way to do it, Angulo says.
The lack of information about which parcels are formalized is just the tip of the iceberg. The majority of Colombia’s rural municipalities have never analyzed the situation to discover what properties—schools, clinics, parks, and utilities—are informal or why.
“As we embark upon improving our health clinics, the formalization of municipal property is a requirement for any investment.” María Emilsen Angulo, Mayor of Tumaco
A Strategy for the Nation
Over the next three years, USAID and the Colombian government are employing similar strategies inCáceres, Antioquia; Sardinata, Norte de Santander; and Ataco, Tolima, among dozens more. By building on the previous five years of the USAID-funded Land and Rural Development Program, which strengthened Colombia’s land-related agencies and institutions, USAID believes Colombia’s government has the tools and determination to expand land formalization efforts to strategic regions, while updating the national cadaster. Colombia’s leaders are hopeful. Just last year, Colombian President Duque announced his plan to update at least 60% of the nation’s cadaster by 2022.
USAID’s goal is to create and support Municipal Land Offices in 12 municipalities in seven target regions, where more than 90 rural clinics could be prioritized for formalization and titling.
“The Municipal Land Offices are fundamental for the implementation of land policies, since they allow the municipality to attend to the formalization of urban properties with a gender focus and support social investment in basic services such as education and health.”Lawrence Sacks, USAID Colombia Mission Director.
USAID promotes land titling and land administration to help resolve the social conflicts facing the population of Cáceres
The town of Caceres was already living in a sort of lockdown long before the coronavirus became an international health crisis. Just a year ago, a self-imposed curfew had curtailed business hours and streets were empty for most of the day and night. Territorial disputes, heedless violence, and constant threats have kept Caceres’ inhabitants always on the verge of abandoning their homes.
Nearly 80% of the municipality’s 11,000 parcels are informally owned, and unregulated gold mining has become the municipality’s principal lure for crime syndicates.
Official figures claim there are 30,000 people living in this historic town, founded over 500 years ago on the banks of the Cauca river in Antioquia, but over the last two years, thousands of those people have left the municipality, unable to face another day of uncertainty. And although these conditions would be ideal for containing a highly contagious virus, they do little to promote rural development, reduce crime, and improve the quality of life.
In addition to being one of three municipalities prioritized by high-level dialog between the U.S. and Colombian governments, Caceres is also a PDET municipality within the Bajo Cauca region. Thus, it is the target of coordinated investments from donors and government entities.
In today’s Caceres, land administration is nearly nonexistent. Nearly 80% of the municipality’s 11,000 parcels are informally owned, and unregulated gold mining has become the municipality’s principal lure for crime syndicates. Also, illicit crops still cover about 1,100 hectares in the municipality. As threats continue to affect rural farmers, formal documentation of land ownership is more important than ever.
Emphasizing Land
In late 2019, the USAID-funded Land for Prosperity Activity began operating in the municipality and offering innovative actions that can increase land security, prevent displacement, and create an environment for sustainable rural development. The mayor of Caceres accepted the challenge and quickly mobilized a team to help create Caceres’ first Municipal Land Office (MLO). Here, a localized team of experts works directly with judges and the National Land Agency (ANT) to formalize public properties and urban properties. The MLO provides valuable information to citizens, promotes a culture of formal land transactions, and is essential in strengthening the coordination between national and rural leaders.
“Land formalization is a way to stimulate the economy, generate a culture of peace and legality, and allow communities to put down roots. Formalized property guarantees legal security and makes it easier for farmers to access credits, subsidies, and government programs to finance their agriculture projects.”-Mayor Juan Carlos Rodriguez
Building Alliances
Building on the Mayor’s motivation, in 2020, USAID facilitated a partnership aimed at increasing resources to formalize urban and rural plots and create incentives for illicit crop substitution. Through a memorandum of understanding, the ANT, Proantioquia, Antioquia’s regional government, the municipality, and USAID agreed to increase local and national coordination and enhance the private sector’s role in rural development. With a broad spectrum of partners, farmers who substitute coca for new crops like cocoa, rubber, or ranching, will have the opportunity to use land titles to access financial services and investment capital.
“By partnering with USAID, our municipality can strengthen land governance, increase resources mobilization, and make larger investments in the communities,– Juan Carlos Rodriguez, Mayor of Caceres
The memorandum will allow the government to test the concept of using land titles as an incentive for illicit crop substitution while strategic private public partnerships mobilize resources for new, licit economic opportunities. In addition, with USAID’s support, the ANT will work with the regional and municipal government leaders to formalize parcels where public entities operate, such as schools, health centers, and parks. Property titles for public lands allow local governments to pull down national-level resources to improve public services like education and health.
“When mayors know how many properties there are, how many people live there, and what projects they can implement, they can plan for the development of their municipalities and improve their citizens’ quality of life.”-Myriam Martínez, Director of Colombia’s National Land Agency
The first step of the Cáceres MLO is to perform a municipal-wide diagnostic study of the municipality’s parcels, including the location of public properties which are untitled, and what services are being provided on each parcel.
Since 2015, USAID has established 20+ Municipal Land Offices in Colombia.
Strong and meaningful land tenure begins with national, regional and local government coordination.
Voices of Local Leaders
Colombia’s bureaucratic public administration system is an obstacle for rural municipalities to connect with the national government, especially in the poorest and most conflict-affected regions. Communication and administrative bottlenecks prevent much needed funding from reaching Colombia’s most vulnerable, underdeveloped areas and hamper the implementation of Territorial Economic Development Plans (PDET), a key tool to boost investment and development in these regions, which also honors commitments for comprehensive rural reform in the 2016 Peace Accord.
“Let’s Click” for the PDET —an initiative created by USAID, the Agency for Territorial Renewal (ART) and the Presidential Counselor for Stabilization, Emilio Archila— seeks to link local priorities with national resources and relevant cooperation programs funded by USAID. It also helps streamline support to avoid redundancy and increase the efficiency of investments.
Last year, USAID’s Land for Prosperity Activity participated in Let’s Click meetings with ART regional officials and elected leaders from several municipalities: The Mayor of Tumaco, 11 municipalities in Catatumbo, 15 in Montes de María, 4 municipalities in Southern Tolima and the Governor of Sucre.
In a meeting with municipal leaders of Southern Tolima, USAID presented its activities and offered technical assistance which aligns with the priorities and needs expressed in their PDETs. Public officials proved eager to continue coordinating with USAID, picking up where past initiatives have left off, such as in land tenure, government strengthening, and tertiary roads.
The mayors from Ataco, Planadas, Chaparral, and Rioblanco also presented USAID-funded tertiary road inventories to the Ministry of Transportation. The ministry is currently selecting the priority tertiary roads to receive attention and funding. USAID is also partnering the the ART to improve private public partnerships in the coffee and cocoa value chains in Southern Tolima.
“We see the PDET territorial approach as the ideal long term solution to consolidate peace in Colombia because of the government’s will to push projects forward” -Lawrence Sacks, USAID Mission Director in Colombia
The mayors of rural PDET municipalities agree that strengthening land tenure and property formalization are key drivers of stabilizing their territories. Over the past five years, PDET communities have continually requested improved land administration in order to update rural land cadasters and issue property titles. Multipurpose cadaster programs designed with USAID support and led by Colombia’s National Land Agency have become the roadmaps that align all levels of government, build the capacity, and inform the community.
In 2019, Colombia’s President Ivan Duque set lofty goals for supporting land policies and updating the country’s rural cadaster. Today a little more than 20% of the country’s cadaster is updated, and the government aims to reach 60% by 2022 and 100% by 2024.
“The Ovejas Pilot (massive land formalization) is proof that land titling, property, financial inclusion, and agriculture strengthening programs can be a reality.”
-Iván Duque, President of Colombia
For the better part of the past four years, USAID has harmonized inter-institutional coordination and partnerships with the National Land Agency (ANT), the Agustin Codazzi Geographic Institute (IGAC), the Superintendence of Notary and Registry (SNR), the National Planning Department (DNP), municipality leaders, and communities.
Land titling serves to transform the local economy by strengthening state presence, triggering public and private investments, and providing local governments with tools for land use and administration. On an individual level, land titling is the first step toward land security and citizen property rights, decreasing people’s vulnerability to displacement. A property title also allows farmers to access subsidies and financial services.
The private sector can do much more than serve markets and create jobs. It is essential for a country’s development and social empowerment.
Formalizing schools allows local governments to mobilize resources towards education in their municipalities.
Many believe that the root of armed conflict in Colombia comes down to land tenure. Land is a key asset to boost economic development, rural transformation, and legal opportunities. This is why the first and most significant aspect of the Peace Accord signed between the Government of Colombia (GOC) and the former FARC guerilla calls for a comprehensive rural reform. This includes democratizing access to land and mass formalization of 7 million rural parcels, that could benefit thousands of rural families and improve their quality of life.
Given the importance of land for rural transformation, Colombia’s government has designed actions and strategies to implement multipurpose and participatory land rights management projects. However, these actions surpass institutional capacity in both human and financial resources. A task this colossal requires for all actors in society to participate, which is why the private sector’s involvement in formalization efforts is so important, not only because of the investments it can make, but mainly because its involvement in long term rural development would ensure the sustainability of formal land markets.
USAID believes in the power of private participation as a driver of social development. As such, the Land for Prosperity Activity
Land for Prosperity visited Proantioquia in February in the hopes of joining forces with the Ser + Maestro initiative, which seeks to strengthen teacher’s capacities in Bajo Cauca. Later, it met with the full board of ProAntioquia, together with USAIDs Mission Director Larry Sacks and the newly elected Governor of Antioquia, to present the Program and its goals for the Department. As a result of those conversations, and the enthusiastic support of both private and public officials, on March 3rd, USAID, the Governor’s Office of Antioquia, the National Land Agency, the private sector through Proantioquia and the Mayoral Office of Cáceres signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to join efforts to formalize public schools in Antioquia, implement massive formalization, rural development, and strengthen local capacity for land governance.
Proantioquia is a private foundation created by large companies from Antioquia, working for sustainable business development in 160 municipalities throughout several departments. It gathers some of the largest companies in Colombia, including Bancolombia (the country’s largest bank), Grupo Éxito (one of the largest retail chains) and Argos (cement producer and one of the most important players in infrastructure projects nation-wide). Its participation in formalization efforts is not only relevant but also innovative: by signing the MOU, the organization became a pioneer in private participation in a topic that has been at the forefront of peace-building efforts.
“The company must be seen as an entity whose purpose goes beyond revenue; it aims to create social capital and public value.”
-Felipe Aramburo, Proantioquia
Its engagement not only marks the possibility of funding from the private sector but also guarantees sustainability of the actions since these efforts in formalization of public schools will ultimately enable local administrations to mobilize resources to enhance educational infrastructure and the quality of the services schools provide. This is especially important in Cáceres, one of the Activity’s target territories prioritized by USAID and the Colombian government as one of the three municipalities of the high level policy dialogue between Colombia and the US government due to the large presence of illegal crops and active armed actors which, together with stagnant development, creates a cycle of poverty, violence and exclusion that is difficult to escape from.
“This is an opportunity for Cáceres. By signing the MOU, the community feels like it is taken into account and that there is willing to work towards territorial development.”-Rodolfo Bastidas, the principal of the Gaspar de Rodas school in Cáceres, Antioquia.
This MoU is the beginning of a new approach that aims to bring a key actor into the mix of socio-economic development. Helping to formalize schools and bring education to the forefront of community building is a game-changer for a complex municipality like Cáceres. “We are fully aware of the power land policies have to transform regions, and what better way to start than by formalizing schools”, said US Ambassador to Colombia, Philip S. Goldberg.
The involvement of USAID in these processes can plant the seed of sustainability for formalization efforts and encourage other private actors to join similar initiatives in Antioquia and beyond. The region of Bajo Cauca in Antioquia concentrates a number of USAID funded Programs working in a coordinated manner, with the Governor’s office to maximize impact of cooperation initiatives.
Mr. Aramburo explains it best when he says: “Signing this MOU is an invitation for the private sector to join efforts to prioritize land formalization in the public agenda. USAID can help with an initial boost so that the government, private sector and other actors join in and make these starting efforts sustainable in the long term.”
“I want to say this to other municipalities around the country: embrace these efforts and support these processes. Do what you must in your territories to improve the education of your community, so they can in turn contribute to the development of the region.”
-Rodolfo Bastidas, Principle of the Gaspar de Rodas school in Cáceres
The Community is Abuzz
Zambia’s conservation community is getting behind the initiative. In the past two training courses, the number of female Community Scouts sponsored by Zambia’s conservation NGOs and private sector game ranches has increased dramatically. In the latest group of 46 scouts, 50% were female, which is a first for the DNPW. “Wildlife protection is often perceived to be a man’s role. At Conservation Lower Zambezi (CLZ), we believe in equality and recognize the value women bring in protecting our natural resources. For this reason CLZ is currently investing in the training of Zambia’s first all-female Community Scout Unit,” says Ian Stevenson from CLZ. Hassan Sachedina from BioCarbon Partners notes: “We see women leading, pioneering, and catalyzing at all levels in the critical fight for biodiversity protection and wildlife habitat conservation in Zambia. Across 13 Chiefdoms, BCP has supported the training of 29 female Community Scouts out of 105 Community Scouts that BCP funds. We are really proud to be striving for and creating strong female role models for future generations.”
A Community Scout Spreads her Wings
“The Municipal Land Offices are fundamental for the implementation of land policies, since they allow the municipality to attend to the formalization of urban properties with a gender focus and support social investment in basic services such as education and health.”
Land for Prosperity visited 
