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From the Ground Up: Participatory Rights Documentation for Healthy Landscapes

Posted on by Amrit Bhandari

Much of the world’s rural landscapes are technically managed by national governments with limited recognition of, or support for, the rights and management responsibilities of the rural poor who live in these areas. In an era of large-scale land acquisitions for global commodity production, this has led, in some cases, to governments allocating vast tracts of land and resources to companies with limited or no consultation of the people affected. These cases pose risks to all stakeholders, including: potential eviction or loss of livelihoods to the communities; reputational risk and operational challenges to companies (including responsible businesses); and the undermining of public confidence in government. Participatory documentation of land and resource rights, using state of the art technology and robust, inclusive processes, is creating an enabling environment to address existing land and resource conflicts, avoid future disputes and create improved land use plans for the future.

Since 2014, USAID’s Tenure and Global Climate Change (TGCC) program has piloted bottom-up participatory approaches to document and, in some cases, achieve government recognition of community land rights in five countries. Working in the diverse locations of Paraguay, Ghana, Zambia, Vietnam and Burma, USAID identified and tested a range of approaches to document land rights to inform conflict resolution and improve planning.

USAID found that, when it comes to addressing land rights challenges, sometimes the best information can’t be collected from satellites, or often even from government offices in capital cities. The information has to come from the ground-up, often through participatory dialogues with the land users themselves. Effective approaches ranged from documenting parcel-level rights for individual farms to clarifying boundaries between communities or documenting broader indigenous group claims.

For example, in Zambia, TGCC carried out household-level land certification of customary land rights, documenting the rights of over 50,000 individuals across more than 15,000 parcels of land. In Burma, by comparison, the allocation of vacant, fallow and virgin land to domestic and foreign investors has been so dramatic in recent years that TGCC found that rapid documentation of village tract boundaries and community land uses was effective in providing a degree of security to both land holders and investors. In Paraguay, TGCC worked through a Federation of Indigenous Peoples groups to consolidate and digitize over six hundred existing land claims into an open platform that commodity financers can use to asses deforestation and land conflicts risks in their investment decisions.

In many cases, rights documentation may not seek to identify one owner, but rather identify many overlapping users of a landscape to help improve management. For example, in Vietnam, TGCC used participatory coastal resource assessments to map overlapping resource rights of different stakeholders including line, net and boat fishermen, as well as aquaculture farmers and shell gleaners within the same coastal mangrove forests. The results ultimately improved mangrove co-management regimes through the development of coastal spatial plans. In other cases, rights documentation sought to clarify tenant rights to make improvements on the land. In Ghana, TGCC recognized that a huge portion of cocoa farmers (in some cases, over 70 percent) were effectively prohibited from participating in industry-funded cocoa intensification / rehabilitation efforts by their existing long-term tenancy arrangements. In response, USAID provided support to document tenant-landlord agreements in a way that promotes farm rehabilitation and reduced deforestation through partnerships with global chocolate and commodity companies: The Hershey Company and ECOM Agroindustrial.

With an increasing recognition of the value of bottom-up land documentation, there has been a wave of technology-based solutions that allow communities to map their own rights. This democratization of technology has allowed communities to move from paper-based participatory mapping to smartphones that can collect boundary points or even draw parcel boundaries directly on a screen over satellite imagery. Tools and platforms, such as the Social Tenure Domain Model, Open Tenure, Cadasta and USAID’s Mobile Applications to Secure Tenure (MAST), are offering low cost solutions to collect and in some cases administer land tenure information. TGCC deployed these tools and platforms, relying on a range of MAST solutions to push forward inclusive land documentation processes.

While mobile solutions undoubtedly reduced costs and increased data quality, they did not replace the most time consuming (and thus costly) elements of land tenure documentation: deep community engagement, trust building, participation and validation of results. In the end, these pieces were the centerpiece of developing transparent and legitimate products. This mix of attention to social processes and standardized tools increased quality and consistency of data collected, and have allowed for the products to be used by the communities themselves, private sector investors, other donors and government.

Impact Evaluation of the Tenure & Global Climate Change Project in Zambia

Posted on by Amrit Bhandari

USAID’s E3/Land and Urban Office supported the design and implementation of a rigorous impact evaluation of the Tenure and Global Climate Change (TGCC) project in Zambia (2014-2017). This project explored the relationship between secure customary land tenure and development goals related to climate change adaptation and mitigation. Prior to the evaluation, there was little or no evidence on whether granting customary documentation to a farmer makes her or him more likely to adopt climate smart agricultural practices.

The overarching policy question and theory of change that motivated this evaluation is:

The USAID TGCC Zambia project was a 3.5-year intervention that supported agroforestry extension services and worked to increase customary tenure security at the village and household levels in the Chipata District of Zambia’s Eastern Province. The project supported USAID development objectives of reduced rural poverty through improved agricultural productivity of smallholders, improved natural resource management and improved resilience of vulnerable households. The TGCC project interventions included:

The evaluation was designed as a four-arm randomized control trial to assess the direct and joint impacts of the agroforestry extension services and land tenure interventions on various outcomes. Villages were randomly assigned to receive one of the following activities:

  • Land tenure interventions
  • Agroforestry extension services
  • Both agroforestry extension services and land tenure interventions
  • No intervention of either kind (control group)

 

Zambian ContextMethodsBaseline FindingsEndline FindingsKey FindingsTheory of Change

ZAMBIAN CONTEXT

Land tenure security and property rights governance issues represent a central focus in Zambia for a range of rural development initiatives to address agricultural livelihoods and poverty reduction. Customary land represents the majority of land in Zambia and is allocated and administered by traditional authorities, led by a chief and based on the application of customary practices. Smallholders commonly have no documentation of their land rights, which can result in complex land disputes over boundaries, defense of land rights or reallocation of land by chiefs or headmen. This is an especially pressing issue in the rural areas of Zambia, where insufficient access to arable land is a recognized driver of conflict. Both traditional leaders and village members are increasingly attuned to a need for documentation to assist in long-term land management.

To encourage food security, Zambian agricultural policy has encouraged climate smart agriculture, and a number of organizations have actively promoted conservation agriculture and agroforestry, especially in Eastern Province. However, uptake of climate smart agriculture practices, in particular agroforestry, remains limited, despite the expected benefits to Zambia’s smallholder farmers who struggle with low yields, unreliable access to fertilizer and vulnerability to climate change.

While there has been a great deal of USAID and other donor research on constraints facing smallholder farmers, the influence of resource tenure and the effects of tenure security on smallholder investment in long-term land productivity in the country is still not fully understood. As the Government of Zambia develops a new land policy and launches a land audit, national land titling program and new forest and wildlife acts, it is important to demonstrate cost-effective models for customary land documentation, administration and management that strengthen the role of local institutions and result in sustainable land and resource management.

EVALUATION METHODS

The evaluation team collaborated closely with the TGCC project prior to develop a robust evaluation design. The impact evaluation is designed to assess the direct and joint impacts of the agroforestry extension intervention and tenure security strengthening intervention on five main types of outcomes:

  • Tenure security
  • Agroforestry uptake and survivorship
  • Land governance
  • Field investment
  • Long-term agricultural productivity and livelihood improvements

The evaluation study area included four chiefdoms in the Chipata District of Eastern Province, Zambia. The chiefdoms are: Mnukwa, Mkanda, Mshawa, and Maguya.

The evaluation was designed as a four-arm randomized control trial, the gold standard of evaluations, in which villages were randomly assigned to receive project interventions across the four chiefdoms in the Chipata District. As shown in the graphic below, villages received one of the following activities:

  • Land tenure interventions
  • Agroforestry extension services
  • Both agroforestry extension services and land tenure interventions
  • No interventions of either kind (control group)

The evaluation assesses the impact of the TGCC project in Zambia on household and field-level outcomes using four primary sources of baseline (2014) and endline (2017) data from 285 communities. These data sources include household surveys (2,896), village leader surveys (271), key informant interviews (568), focus group discussions with women, youth and land-constrained households (62) and project monitoring and evaluation data collected by TGCC and the evaluation team.

For more information about the evaluation design, please see the TGCC Zambia Impact Evaluation Design Report.

PERCEPTION OF TENURE SECURITY

Prior to TGCC, households felt secure that their fields would not be taken away from them from: family members, the village headman or neighboring villages. This expectation held true for the short-term and the future. The general security of land is demonstrated by less than 1% (N=55) of households indicating having any land reallocated in the past.

At the same time, households showed concern over their future security. Forty percent (N=1,409) of households believed it likely that the chief or government would give up at least one of their fields for investment purposes. Over 90% (N=3,224) expressed they would like to obtain paper documentation for their farmland. Focus group participants also indicated this strong desire for paper documentation and believed that this documentation would strengthen tenure security by providing proof of ownership, promoting dispute resolution and solidifying claims to land.

 

CONFLICT & DISPUTES

Even though people felt secure about their land, disputes over fields still existed, particularly over field boundaries and inheritance. Overall, the total number of disputes over fields were low with only about 11% (N=1,007) of fields reported as disputed.

AGROFORESTRY 

Planting agroforestry trees is encouraged as these trees fix nitrogen in their roots and leaves, improving soil fertility and reducing farmers’ need to purchase chemical fertilizers. Better soil quality leads to improved crop productivity and increased yields. The long-term benefit is improved livelihoods for farmers.

Baseline results indicated that there was a low rate of agroforestry uptake with only 11% (N=383) of households practicing agroforestry across 5% (N=404) of fields in the study. Fields were defined by how they were used for cultivation—for example a field used for maize cultivation versus a field that has been left fallow. Results suggested this low uptake rate may have been driven by a lack of access to seedlings and farmers’ lack of knowledge of the benefits that planting trees may provide. While the majority of these fields were planted with agroforestry trees to improve the fertility of their soil, only about half of the fields had seen benefits at baseline data collection.

The most popular type of agroforestry species planted across the villages was the Musangu (pictured below), followed by Sesbaniaseban and Gliricidia trees.

LAND GOVERNANCE & MANAGEMENT

Overall, households agreed that they were satisfied with their community leaders and land governance over a variety of metrics including their leader’s transparency about their decisions, fair allocation of land across households and accountability for their decisions. Focus group participants also indicated that they felt the land allocations were transparent and just.

 

The most common land management rule regulates the grazing of livestock on communal land. Nearly 90% (N=225) of headmen report their village has a rule about grazing livestock on communal lands and over 80% (N=181) of headmen reported that at least half of the households in the village follow grazing rules. After grazing, tree cutting was the most prevalent rule, followed by rules about fires or burning. Most headmen reported that their communities have a good understanding of the rules.

For more information about the baseline findings, please see the TGCC Zambia Baseline Impact Evaluation Report.

PERCEPTION OF TENURE SECURITY

There is strong evidence that the TGCC process of boundary demarcation and expectation of receiving paper documentation substantially increased perceptions of tenure security.  At both baseline and endline, households were asked to assess the short-term (1-3 years) and long-term (4+ years) likelihood that each plot of land would be reallocated or encroached by various entities including their chief, a neighbor or family. These short-term and long-term measures were combined to create an index for perception of tenure security as shown below.

Households in villages that received the land tenure interventions are more likely to express confidence that their farmland is secure from internal and external sources of encroachment or reallocation. As seen in the graph below, the percentage of households fearful of encroachment or reallocation decreased across various entities.  Households across every treatment group demonstrated a large decrease in their fear of unauthorized land reallocation or expropriation by chiefs. It’s also apparent that households’ greatest fear at endline was that other households will try to use their field.

Focus group participants also revealed that households believe that the primary drivers of this increased sense of tenure security are having well-known and clearly defined boundaries through the demarcation process in combination with paper evidence of their customary land holdings.

Roughly 80% (N=488) of households that received the land tenure intervention believe that having a customary land certificate will make it less likely for their land to be taken, both now and in the future, as shown in the graph below.

Overall, as seen during baseline, disputes were low. Households believe that customary land certificates have reduced disputes about inheritance (39%, N=195) and even more believe they will do so in the future (52%, N=255).

AGROFORESTRY UPTAKE & SURVIVORSHIP

For the overall household sample, the agroforestry extension services were successful in motivating greater uptake of agroforestry as shown in the map below.

In villages that received the agroforestry extension services, vulnerable groups such as female-headed households, youth, elders, poor and land-constrained groups also show significant uptake in agroforestry across fields. The graphic below shows the increase in the average number of agroforestry trees per field across all treatment groups by each vulnerable group. For example, female-headed households receiving both the agroforestry extension services and land tenure strengthening interventions moved from an average of 0.06 trees per field at baseline to 0.28 trees per field at endline.

For the overall study sample, there is no evidence of improved benefits for households that received the additional land tenure support compared to those that only received agroforestry extension services. However, the study finds marginal benefits to linking land tenure and agroforestry for female-headed households, poor and elder respondents. This finding provides limited support to the argument that, at least for vulnerable groups, stronger property rights affect a farmer’s decision to practice agroforestry.

In communities where the agroforestry extension services were offered, roughly a third of households had at least one household member participate in the program. Of the households that did not participate, one key reason was that they were unable to attend the initial meeting. Focus group participants also indicated that they did not participate because they preferred a program that provided inputs such as seeds.

Musangu tree is the most common tree species planted across every treatment group. It can be grown amidst any crop, but the program encouraged farmers to plant their fields where Musangu seedlings were being grown with low-growing crops such as groundnuts, to ensure that the seedlings would get enough sunlight. The second most common species of agroforestry tree is Gliricidia, which is normally planted along the perimeter of a field as a type of hedge.

The expected benefits of planting agroforestry trees such as Musangu trees are well known to households in Chipata district. The most common expected benefit cited both now and in the future is improved soil fertility. As shown below, the number of households who expect to see this benefit in the future for their Musangu tree is about double the number of households who currently see the benefit, indicating that households understand that the benefits of agroforestry accrue in the future. 

Despite understanding the benefits, some households are still skeptical that these benefits will actually materialize for them, both now and in the future.  At present, 38% (N=228) of households that received agroforestry extension services see no benefits to their Musangu trees. This number drops substantially when households are asked about benefits they expect in the future (13%, N=71). Additionally, agroforestry adoption also does not appear to strengthen household’s perception of tenure security. Almost no households believe that planting agroforestry trees strengthens land tenure or raises the value of their land for collateral, either now or in the future.

Within areas receiving agroforestry extension services, seedling and tree survival rates are low. Across all years of the program, over a third of households who engaged in agroforestry report that less than 25% (N=183) of their Musangu and Glyricidia seedlings survived.  Seedling survival declines over time and is the lowest in 2016, after the agroforestry extension services were withdrawn. The map below shows average survivorship rates by village across all treatment groups.

The most common challenges to agroforestry seedling survival include a lack of water for seedlings, fires burning trees, pests killing the trees and animals grazing in the field. Despite additional program efforts to construct wells and boreholes, focus group participants noted the continued lack of water.


Photo by Jeremy Green / The Cloudburst Group

The difficulties with seedling survival show that despite interest in, and knowledge of, agroforestry, sufficient labor and time inputs remain an essential missing piece for smallholders.

INVESTMENTS IN FIELDS

An important finding is the weak but positive evidence of a link between strengthening customary tenure and enhanced field investments. There is statistically significant evidence of improved labor or cost intensive long-term field investments (an index comprised of planting basins, rotating crops, fallowing and fertilizer application) for households receiving the land tenure intervention. This long-term field investment index in addition to the percent of households that feel secure by treatment group is shown below.

However, the standalone results for fallowing might also indicate that households do not feel as secure as some of the perception of tenure security results indicate. For example, leaving fields fallow is particularly important for soil fertility, but is often feared because uncultivated fields are more likely to be reallocated or encroached on than cultivated fields. As shown below, fallowing is low across all treatment groups indicating that households may still fear that their land will be reallocated if their field is not in use. Additionally, the graph indicates significant variation in the types of field investments undertaken across the study area.

LAND GOVERNANCE & MANAGEMENT

TGCC sought to clarify resource tenure over private, community, and open access resources, and supported dialogue over community resource rules. TGCC worked with each community to document their land and resource governance rules. However, there is no change in household’s perceptions of land management decision making or their satisfaction with customary leaders. Satisfaction with customary leaders was relatively high at baseline, which may explain the lack of statistically significant findings on this issue.

However, there appears to be positive impacts on satisfaction with community leaders for female-headed households. As demonstrated in the graphic below, there is a clear shift from the total number of female-headed households at baseline with low satisfaction of their community leaders to a higher level of satisfaction at endline across all treatment groups compared to the control households.

KEY FINDINGS

  • There is strong quantitative evidence that TGCC has a positive impact on household perceptions of improved tenure security. Households receiving informal customary certificates report approximately a half point increase on a six-point index measuring their perceived security of tenure from unauthorized land expropriation.
  • However, there is no evidence that strengthening land tenure motivated increased agroforestry uptake for the household sample, although there is evidence of a link between stronger land rights and other labor and cost intensive field investments.
  • The results show increased rates of agroforestry adoption, although the actual tree planting and seedling survival rates remain low.
  • Vulnerable subgroups may have experienced additional benefits. The study finds several positive tenure and agroforestry adoption impacts for female-headed, youth, elderly, poor and land-constrained households.
  • As expected, the analysis found no evidence of a TGCC impact on crop yields or livelihoods as these are long-term impacts requiring an additional round of data collection.

POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS

  • The findings support the scale-up of TGCC’s documentation and boundary demarcation approach in Zambia and program piloting, and potential scaling, in other customary land systems in Africa.
  • The benefits of the agroforestry extension should be reexamined and other climate-smart agriculture activities considered, such as minimum tillage or crop rotation, given the large labor investment and challenge to keeping seedlings alive.
  • If the agroforestry extension is continued, future programs should consider strengthening land management rules that would limit seedlings being grazed by cattle or burned by fires, and ensure villages have access to water for the nursery. Introducing incentives for seedling survival or adding monitoring visits might also increase the success of the program.

DID THE THEORY OF CHANGE SUCCEED?

This impact evaluation provides evidence to assess TGCC’s program effectiveness and theory of change. As shown in the graphic below, receiving the land tenure intervention in addition to the agroforestry extension services does not generate increased agroforestry adoption over the extension services alone. While the land tenure intervention had a positive impact on perceived tenure security and the agroforestry extension services had a positive impact on agroforestry uptake, there is no evidence to support the hypothesis that combining the interventions led to greater rates of agroforestry uptake in the short-term for the overall household sample. These short-term results may indicate that households need to feel secure for some time before they begin adopting more time and labor intensive investments.

Overall, the evaluation does not find evidence of a program impact on long-term outcomes such as seedling survival, agricultural productivity, or livelihood improvements. This is not surprising given the short three-year time period between baseline and endline data collection. There is strong reason to expect that the project effects in the long-term may differ from those in the short-term. It may take time for households to trust that the guarantees of land tenure will be honored. Households that adopt agroforestry may subsequently abandon it. These longer-term indicators should be potentially explored during subsequent rounds of data collection with the same households that took part in the baseline and endline surveys.

EVIDENCE-BASED PROGRAMMING

The new knowledge generated from this impact evaluation will be used to make more evidence-based decisions, ensuring that USAID continues to make targeted and sustainable investments in future programming. Another round of data collection would provide further understanding about the long-term impact and benefits of the TGCC project in Zambia. This will promote a better understanding of the TGCC program’s full policy potential and value for money, and inform other stakeholders’ decisions to take the program to scale in Zambia and other African countries with similar customary land systems.

All photos by Sandra Coburn / The Cloudburst Group, unless noted otherwise.

TGCC Zambia: Strengthening Land Rights for Sustainable Farming: Customary Land Documentation and Agroforestry in Zambia

Posted on by Amrit Bhandari

Land is the most important asset that small-scale farmers have but without recognized and secure property rights, individuals’ farm investments may be at risk. In Zambia, USAID supported local farming communities by helping them secure land rights through low-cost, locally available tools and processes, and teaching techniques, like agroforestry, that are designed to improve their land’s productivity now and in the future.

Learn more about USAID’s Tenure and Global Climate Change project in Zambia.

TGCC Zambia: Uniting Tradition and Tenure Documenting Custom Land Rights in Zambia

Posted on by Amrit Bhandari

Through its Tenure and Global Climate Change program, USAID worked with government, local civil society partners, chiefs and chieftainesses in Zambia to document land and support secure tenure for local communities. Together with these stakeholders, processes were developed and implemented which helped to unite customary land management with new mechanisms and documentation techniques.

Learn more about USAID’s Tenure and Global Climate Change project in Zambia.

TGCC Zambia: Stronger Together: Partnerships to Strengthen Land Rights in Zambia

Posted on by Amrit Bhandari

Through partnerships with civil society, government, private sector and communities, USAID helped bring global best practices and low-cost mobile tools to document and administer land rights in support of Zambia’s economic development. Civil society partnerships led to immediate impacts toward securing land tenure, protecting wildlife and providing new technologies for communities and customary leaders on the ground.

Learn more about USAID’s Tenure and Global Climate Change project in Zambia.

TGCC Zambia: In My Own Name: Empowering Women Through Secure Land Rights

Posted on by Amrit Bhandari

Though the majority of its tribes follow matrilineal inheritance patterns, women’s land rights in rural areas are far from secure. In Zambia’s Eastern Province, USAID worked with traditional leaders and through local partners to strengthen the land rights of thousands of households, and placed women at the center of the process.

Learn more about USAID’s Tenure and Global Climate Change project in Zambia.

Understanding and Resolving Land Conflicts is the First Step

Posted on by Amrit Bhandari

Q&A with Juliana Cortés, Director of Rural Land Tenure & Land Use Planning, National Land Agency

THE NATIONAL LAND AGENCY CURRENTLY HAS 23 LAND FORMALIZATION PILOT PROJECTS IN DEVELOPMENT. WITH THE FUNDING AND SUPPORT OF USAID, THE PILOT PROJECT IN THE MUNICIPALITY OF OVEJAS IN THE DEPARTMENT OF SUCRE IS THE MOST ADVANCED AND REPRESENTS AN OPPORTUNITY TO REACH THE GOALS OF THE PEACE ACCORDS, WHERE LAND USE PLANNING IS A TOP PRIORITY. JULIANA CORTES LEADS THE DIRECTORATE FOR RURAL LAND TENURE AND USE PLANNING AT THE NATIONAL LAND AGENCY (NLA) AND IN THIS INTERVIEW SPEAKS ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE PILOT AND NEW STRATEGIES FOR SUSTAINABLY FORMALIZING PROPERTY IN COLOMBIA.

Q: How would you explain this massive land formalization pilot project in Ovejas to someone who is unfamiliar with land and property issues?

A: Previously, land formalization was done in a completely isolated and independent manner, and now this pilot project is changing how things are done in the rural sector. We selected the Municipality of Ovejas, in Sucre, and are focusing on resolving all the conflicts and situations regarding land in that area. To do this, we visit each plot of land to uncover these situations in order to find solutions. This is an innovative pilot performed on a massive scale and requires coordination among various agencies that know the area, such as the Agustin Codazzi Geographic Institute (IGAC), the Superintendence of Notary and Registry, and the community – especially community leaders. We received the support of USAID to establish the methodology we are using and to fund the pilot project.

Q: How important is land formalization to this administration?

A: This government is very committed to organizing property and formalizing land. We have a significant amount of national resources that have allowed us to cover more area than ever before in the history of Colombia. These resources have also allowed us to implement this massive land formalization methodology in many other municipalities. There is always a need for more resources, but we expect to achieve solid and well-structured results. And we hope that these types of programs continue in the next administration.

Q: How does the Ovejas Pilot Project fit in with the framework of the Peace Accords?

A: Rural reform is the backbone of the Havana Peace Accords, which has very ambitious goals for land formalization. The Ovejas Pilot Project represents a new way of operating. It uses the big picture approach, a massive sweep methodology, allowing us firsthand knowledge of the number of plots of land and the types of conflicts in the territory. This methodology also involves community participation, which is also a part of the Peace Accords.

 

 

Webinar: Private Sector Perspectives on Responsible Land-Based Investment, Part II

Posted on by Amrit Bhandari

This webinar is over, but you can still watch the recording above. USAID LandLinks, Marketlinks and Agrilinks hosted the second webinar in a three-part series examining the constraints and opportunities surrounding property rights and responsible land-based investment (the first webinar took place in October with The Hershey Company and ECOM Agroindustrial Corporation).

This webinar discussed lessons learned from pilot activities in Mozambique where USAID’s Public Private Partnership for Responsible Land-Based Investment Pilot is working with Illovo Sugar, Ltd., Indufor, N.A., and Terra Firma to meet corporate commitments on land governance by improving land tenure security around their Maragra plantation. The pilot focused on sensitization, participatory mapping, verification of plot boundaries, certification, and application for government-issued rights of occupancy and use, as well as the development of a grievance mechanism for Illovo.

Can You Picture a Water Secure World?

Posted on by Amrit Bhandari

USAID’s Global Waters team invites readers, implementers, mission personnel and other water professionals to help illustrate the next phase of USAID’s commitment to addressing the world’s water challenges as outlined in the newly released U.S. Government Global Water Strategy through photos. USAID is contributing to the Strategy through its Water and Development Plan by providing 15 million people with sustainable access to safe drinking water services and 8 million people with sustainable sanitation.

The #WaterSecureWorld photo contest will help highlight the many different people, places and activities that are part of USAID’s ongoing efforts to improve access to water supply, sanitation and hygiene (WASH).

The winning photos will be announced and displayed with full credits in USAID’s Global Waters magazine and promoted on Globalwaters.org and USAID.gov. Quality submissions may also be featured on the @USAIDWater Twitter feed and other water-related publications such as Water Currents, which collectively reach thousands of subscribers. Winners will also be featured on USAID’s Global Waters Flickr page.

All photographs must be submitted no later than 12 a.m. EST (New York time), March 9, 2018. For full contest details and guidelines visit USAID #WaterSecureWorld Photo Contest or download the pdf version.

We look forward to your submissions!

Ask the Expert: An Interview with Tao Van Dang, Tenure and Global Climate Change – Vietnam

Posted on by Amrit Bhandari

Tao Van Dang has served as the activity manager for the Participatory Coastal Spatial Planning and Mangrove Governance project in Vietnam since 2015. With more than 20 years of project management experience, particularly in non-governmental organizations, Dang has overseen mangrove re-forestation and disaster preparedness projects throughout Vietnam.

Tell us about the USAID pilot project, “Our Coast – Our Future.”

I led a team to implement the “Our Coast – Our Future” activity under USAID’s Tenure and Global Climate Change program, which piloted a Participatory Coastal Spatial Planning process (PCSP), including a low-cost participatory spatial mapping for mangrove governance in three coastal communes of the Tien Lang district in Hai Phong municipality in Vietnam from October 2016 to December 2017.

Starting with stakeholder engagement, we introduced the project’s participatory mapping process to a range of stakeholders from local government, political and social organizations and coastal resource use groups. This first step in the process was to share the pilot’s objectives, processes, the current state of mangroves in the area and the planned benefits. From this step, more than 150 people were selected to continue the work on a Participatory Coastal Resource Assessment (PCRA) within the three coastal communes of Vinh Quang, Dong Hung and Tien Hung. The Participatory Coastal Resource Assessments were used to develop coastal profiles on current uses, management of coastal resources and tenure. Next, results of the Participatory Coastal Resource Assessments were combined with the instruction and creation of spatial maps to provide a clear picture of coastal resources uses and governance on the ground.

Through the Participatory Coastal Resource Assessments and mapping activities, we worked with commune members on identifying development goals and determine future coastal resource use, including how strategically placed mangrove plantations can help protect livelihoods and coastlines. Finally, we supported Tien Lang district to finalize their coastal spatial planning report and mangrove co-management report. These reports were shared widely with ministerial agencies and 25 coastal provinces of Vietnam. Thanks to great local-community participation, our team produced a toolkit, which included three guides for Participatory Coastal Spatial Planning, two gender briefs and one lessons learned brief to guide future projects.

Why is this work important?

In Vietnam, mangroves have experienced consistent deforestation pressures since the 1980s because of agriculture development, aquaculture farming and other infrastructure development. However, it is increasingly clear that mangrove forests hold considerable importance within Vietnam’s coastlines because they provide a buffer against intensifying coastal disasters such as typhoons and adapt to rising sea levels. They also provide important sources of livelihoods, including aquaculture, coastal gleaning and fisheries, as well as biodiversity conservation. The negative impacts of mangrove loss such as broken dyke sites, saltwater intrusion and farming failure become clear several years after mangrove deforestation. Therefore, mangrove replanting and conservation has been carried out since the 1980s, but to varying degrees of success. USAID’s “Our Coast – Our Future” pilot project is different because it promotes the design of coastal spatial scenarios to inform participatory, tenure-responsive approaches to coastal spatial planning. The pilot identified ways to improve the management of specific coastal natural resources by examining who has access, use, management and exclusion rights to specific resource areas of the coastal landscape.

What are key achievements/successes from Tenure and Global Climate Change’s work in Vietnam?

In Vietnam, the Tenure and Global Climate Change project developed many realistic best practices, including a toolkit, a refined process on strengthening tenure in coastal communities and a lessons learned report describing pitfalls to the pilot’s work in land tenure. These outputs will be used by the World Bank’s Forest Sector Modernization and Coastal Resilience Enhancement project in nine coastal provinces of Vietnam, scheduled from 2018 to 2022.

What were the key lessons learned?

  • During the stakeholder engagement step, it became clear to our team how “support from key leaders facilitates broader engagement.” This was essential to the project’s success. The Participatory Coastal Spatial Planning process requires substantial and wide-ranging stakeholder engagement, from the provincial to the village level. It showed us how essential it is to have the right representatives involved at each level to ensure participation and eventually, the acceptance of project results at the activity’s completion.
  • Another important lesson learned is how “community participation in mapping and coastal profile development yields robust plans.” The pilot project took steps to ensure that men and women from all coastal-area resource user groups participated at the commune-level workshops and activities. This was achieved by careful facilitation of event location and timing, as well as discussion content, to meet the needs of all the groups the project sought to engage.
  • The project also noted how “gender-targeted engagement leads to inclusive planning” as participatory spatial planning requires engagement from all social groups. Women and men access, use and manage coastal natural resources differently, and therefore, there was not, nor could there be, a one-size-fits-all approach.

Where can I find more information?

Project information and documents on Tenure and Global Climate Change‘s work in Vietnam can be found on the LandLinks project page, here.