Document Type: Briefs

On June 3, 2016, ERC supported USAID and shared a set of lessons learned from the Mobile Application to Secure Tenue (MAST) pilot project with stakeholders in Tanzania.  During the workshop, ERC and USAID presented the findings from a “Lessons Learned” report, the findings from the MAST Performance Evaluation and introduced the new Feed the Future Land Tenure Assistance (LTA) Activity.

ERC Technical Lead for MAST, Mr. Jeffrey Euwema participated in the workshop, as did MAST team members from local subcontractor CARE International/Tanzania (Mr. Thabit Masoud and Mr. Mustapha Issa) and TAGRODE (Mr. Zubery Mwachulla and Mr. Dickson Mwalubandu).  Mr. Issa led a demonstration of the MAST technology and Mr. Euwema reported out on progress to date on numbers of parcels mapped, numbers of formal land rights documents delivered, and a gender breakdown on numbers of men and women with names on these documents.

Key lessons learned from this pilot include the following:

• Regular engagement with the national Government was important for integrating the MAST technology and implementation approach into the rural land adjudication process;
• Partnering with the national Government at the operational level helped to facilitate implementation at the district and local levels;
• District land staff have the expertise to survey and map lands using the MAST technology;  Adopting a “hyper-local” approach to advocacy and training helped increase knowledge of land laws and adjudication practices among villagers and increased buy-in and support;
• The Trusted Intermediary model worked to capture land rights information in a timely manner; Youth were enthusiastic and engaged in this process and effectively served as mentors to others;
• A strong focus on women’s land rights and the rights other vulnerable groups has helped increase security and promote gender equality; and
• Geospatial resources and tools were easily adopted by project beneficiaries.

However, experiences from the pilot also highlight some key challenges which include:

• A lack of sufficient, dedicated funding from the national government constrains efforts to systematically register land rights at the district level;
• The District Land Office needs additional staff with appropriate capacity to manage a process of systematic registration in a timely manner;
• Cumbersome practices to print, record, issue and deliver CCROs are a significant bottleneck in the delivery of land rights documentation;
• The high sunk costs associated with the use of “crested paper” and other required stationary makes the delivery of CCROs expensive;
• The expectation that government staff and village leaders will receive per diems to support land adjudication work creates financial pressures on project resources;
• Lack of accurate mapping data create ambiguities in the formal land adjudication process and reduces efficiencies in mapping and data collection;
• Limitations related to land use planning processes have the potential to exclude vulnerable groups and increase disputes;
• Costs associated with internet services, geospatial resources and tools and cloud-based databases need to be factored into government budgets if the MAST approach is expanded; and
• The Government needs to identify real demand for CCROs among citizens, and price delivery of land administration services appropriately to create a revenue stream to support systematic land adjudication.

The MAST pilot project closes all activities in the next quarter.

In pursuit of its mission to reduce land conflict and improve land governance, the Burkinabe National Land Observatory is laying the foundation for permanent monitoring, analysis and facilitated debate of land issues in the country. When the NLO was established, it was very difficult to envision how to actually produce valuable information to a large public in order to serve the decision-making regarding the land reform in Burkina Faso.

CHALLENGE 

In July 2014 the National Land Observatory was established in Burkina Faso to monitor and analyze land tenure practices in the country and to share the specialized information with a broad community of stakeholders. The ultimate goal of these activities is to improve land governance and mitigate the currently pervasive risk of land conflict.

The NLO Charter classifies the new organization as an “association” – a hybrid category that differentiates the NLO both from government agencies and NGOs. Consistent with its legal status the NLO comprises four colléges, or constituent organizations, including the Central Government, Local Governments (known as Territorial Collectivities), Civil Society (generally represented by NGOs) and the Private Sector. This inclusive coalition of actors shares a common interest: access to improved and more accurate information regarding land tenure and land property rights issues in Burkina Faso, and achievement of informed policy-making based on independent and impartial studies.

The challenge is to build a decision-making tool capable of gathering and analyzing key data coming from different horizons, at different scales and quality, and feeding the data into a standardized system founded on rigorously and broadly vetted sets of thematic indicators. For example, evaluation of trends regarding formalization of land property rights may in part be based on property records including location, shape and related tenure information or number of new ownership certificates delivered by local land bureaus. The same data may be analyzed to evaluate such diverse trends as relative access to land on the part of women, the relationship between formal land rights and investment, or the growth of agribusiness in specific settings. Along with these multiple themes and data, needs is the challenge of storing and managing information in efficient and usable ways. Success depends on proper design and management of a specialized database.

METHODOLOGY 

The first step was to identify and hire a local specialist with maximum knowledge of database management including spatial information. The knowledge and skills of the NLO database specialist regarding land tenure and property rights was ensured through a rigorous training program completed during the first few months following establishment of the NLO. More recently, USAID database specialists have been working with the NLO to design and build a specialized yet standardized database. In parallel, several workshops have been organized to develop and finalize the 5-year observation program of the NLO. The 5-year program specifies 3 primary domains for observation (rural, urban and climate change) and 14 land tenure issues areas, each with a set of associated monitoring indicators. In order to avoid duplicating efforts that had already been made, and to benefit from currently available information, an additional workshop was co-sponsored by the NLO and the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Decentralization to inventory, evaluate and document all existing databases of land information in Burkina Faso.

SUCCESS

The NLO land information system has been designed and is now ready to be populated with data being gathered from different institutions and members of the NLO. The baseline data coming from the land administration and the institute of geography including local government boundaries (communes, department and regions) and the road network have been concatenated and are being completed with topographical, hydrological and other types of thematic information. The system is in the process of being secured with user-access rights in order to respect security of private information and ensure transparency of information. In short, the community of land tenure stakeholders in Burkina Faso is now looking forward to transformation of the raw data into information assessing the initial status of the 14 issue areas identified in the 5-year observation program based on the standardized monitoring indicators adopted for each theme.

As part of its G-7 commitments to support and improve land governance, the U.S. Government, through USAID, has provided critical funding to the National Land Observatory, or Observatoire National du Foncier (ONF), in Burkina Faso.  Over the past two years, the young organization has hired staff, created a 5-year work program, produced a series of targeted land tenure assessments, and issued a regular newsletter called Zoom sur le foncier.

This quarter, the ONF moved beyond observing to doing.  It began the process of adapting USAID’s Mobile Application to Secure Tenure (MAST) for use in Burkina Faso.  MAST was developed by USAID for use in rural Tanzania.  The mobile application and data management system, which are based on the Social Tenure Domain Model, needed to be carefully modified to collect demographic and tenure information in this different legal and social environment.  In order to do this, the ONF has created a Core Team of critical stakeholders to lead the adaptation process, in collaboration with USAID and ERC.  The newly modified technology will be piloted in Boudry Commune east of the capital city of Ouagadougou.  It will have a French user interface that creates the forms needed by local Land Office and Cadastral agents to secure land rights.

In addition, the ONF identified appropriate training materials and developed training modules to instruct local people on the land laws and women’s land rights. In-person trainings will be accompanied by radio programs that discuss the importance of securing land rights to reduce conflict and empower women.  Early in the next quarter the ONF, working with the local Land Office and women and men from four villages, will lead efforts to map 2,000 parcels in Boudry Commune. This will help local citizens to secure rights in an area that is experiencing increasing land pressure.  This pilot will provide an important test of how to scale the delivery of land rights documentation in a West African context.

The National Land Tenure Observatory (NLO) in Burkina Faso is a product of the same wave of land tenure reform that has been ongoing in Burkina Faso since the early-2000s and culminated in a national rural land policy (2007) and rural land tenure law (2009). The principal driver of rural land tenure reform is growing awareness of the government (GoBF) that the land tenure situation in rural areas presents a significant risk to social peace and a constraint to economic development. The general principles that have emerged and been adopted by the GOBF to guide development of a new rural land tenure policy include: recognition of customary land property rights; fair and secure access to land for all categories of legitimate rights holders; increased authority and responsibilities of local governments to manage key aspects of land tenure; improved land administration by the government; and participatory processes for policy development.

The NLO is a unique hybrid organization whose membership includes the official policy-making establishment (the central government), the policy-implementing establishment (local governments), the policy-lobbying establishment (the NGO community), and policy consumers (representatives of civil society including customary and religious leaders, women and youth organizations, agricultural and livestock producers and others). Given its heterogeneous composition, one might expect a fairly long gestation in achieving consensus around a program—and one would be right. The targeted 5-year NLO Observation Program was officially launched on June 16, 2015 in the course of a meeting of the NLO General Assembly, just under a year from the date on which the NLO received its legal charter on July 3, 2014.

The NLO is currently collecting information based on 2-5 indicators identified for each of 14 land tenure issue areas, most of which apply to both the rural and urban domains. The first systematic data analyses and report are anticipated by late-October 2015, thus initiating biannual reporting on consistent sets of indicators that will enable identification and tracking of land tenure and land use trends over time. In addition, the NLO is finalizing plans to conduct 3-4 studies each year on specific land tenure themes of interest. Stakeholders and observers interested in following land tenure in Burkina Faso are advised to stay tuned for coming developments and products from the country’s new National Land Tenure Observatory.

In June of 2013, in support of the G7’s commitment to implement the Voluntary Guidelines for the Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (VGGT), the U.S. Government and the Government of Burkina Faso agreed to create a Land Governance Partnership. This partnership is designed improve land administration and other land governance issues and increase transparency in Burkina Faso’s land sector. These efforts support policy commitments made in Burkina Faso’s New Alliance Cooperation Framework related to “Facilitating Access to Land and its Secure Productive Use.” Partnership activities will also help build a stronger enabling environment in the country, one that gives farmers—women and men—positive incentives to invest labor and capital to improve productivity and, in turn, food security.

The Partnership has two main goals:  establish a new institution called the National Land Observatory (NLO) and build local capacity to track and to improve the transparency of land transactions. Following the partnership agreement, both activities are now underway. In late June, the General Assembly of Burkina Faso formally established the NLO and in early July, the organization began operations with USAID support.

In order to help the government implement the VGGT, the NLO will monitor and support land tenure reform in the country. It will conduct research and policy analysis touching on rural and urban tenure issues, disseminate findings broadly, and engage with regional organizations to improve land governance and reduce land-related conflict in West Africa. The current staff of five are working on creating a sustainable and self-financing institution that will help improve land governance in their country.

The other important goal of the Partnership is to build local capacity to track land transactions and help improve the transparency of these transfers. Under this component of the project, an assessment report of Burkina Faso’s existing land information system, including reviewing the status of a land record digitization effort, supported by the Millennium Challenge Account/Burkina Faso was developed. An options paper is that will discuss possible approaches and best next steps for a land information system for the country is also in development.

The National Land Observatory (NLO) of Burkina Faso has been receiving financial and technical support from USAID since August 2014. The support is characterized as “start-up” and USAID has strongly encouraged the NLO to develop long-term partnerships with a network of partners to ensure future financial viability and a robust, long-term program of research, evaluation and policy recommendations targeting improved local land governance throughout the country. The NLO now appears to be making progress on the partnership front.

A NEW 8-YEAR COMMITMENT OF COLLABORATION WITH THE NEER TAMBA PROJECT
The Neer Tamba Project, funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the Government of Burkina Faso, aims to empower local populations within the framework of Burkina Faso’s expanding decentralization policies. Recognizing that the rural poor often have little wealth beyond their rights to land—rights which are nearly always of an informal nature and therefore legally fragile—Neer Tamba is looking to the NLO to develop strategies to achieve land-related project program objectives including: increased awareness and education of local populations regarding rural land policies, targeted land tenure studies to fill existing information gaps, and expanded implementation of the 2009 Rural Land Tenure Law by capitalizing the results of the MCA Rural Land Governance Project (implemented 2009-2014). The new partnership provides the NLO with the opportunity to build on and reinforce the broader Neer Tamba program being implemented in 82 communes across three administrative regions of the country.

A formal collaboration agreement was signed by Neer Tamba and the NLO on March 1, 2016, for an initial year of collaboration, renewable annually for a total of eight years. Neer Tamba will provide 25,475,000 CFA (approximately $43,000) during the first year to support the following NLO activities:

• Organization and conduct of an annual “forums” to present and discuss policies and processes for securing land-based investments in each of three administrative regions;
• Information collection on land themes and its validation at the commune level;
• Training of commune agents;
• Organization of educational exchanges among local actors in the three regions;

The total value of Neer Tamba support of the NLO over the eight years is estimated at 150,000,000 CFA (approximately $250 thousand). The NLO will partner with a government agency, the General Direction for Organization of Rural Populations (DGFORM), to implement the Neer Tamba sponsored program. The NLO partnership with Neer Tamba follows an earlier agreement with the World Bank, which will finance NLO implementation of six land tenure studies during 2016-2017. At the same time, the NLO is actively pursuing additional partnerships with internationally-funded projects and programs, perhaps most notably with USAID-funded projects working under the RISE project.

In November 2015 the NLO co-sponsored a workshop to explore the status and performance of land information collections and systems in Burkina Faso. The workshop was intended to build on a NLO-sponsored study of the land information systems that are maintained by central government agencies and local governments. The study detailed the many challenges and current low level of reliability as well as a lack of completeness that characterizes the various archives and collections of land information held by GoBF and local governments. Among the recommendations adopted at the conclusion of the workshop was for the GoBF to develop a pilot activity to design and test improved strategies for collection and storing information in three contexts: a rural commune, an urban commune and an arrondissement of one of the two major population centers of the country—Ouagadougou and Bobo-Dioulasso. While the NLO’s co-sponsor of the workshop, the Activity to Reinforce Local Governance (PRGLA), was nominated to lead development of the component targeting an urban commune, the NLO was designated as the lead facilitator of the component to pilot development of a land information system (SIF) in a rural commune.

Since the November 2015 workshop, the NLO has participated in or led several activities to advance the development of the pilot. These activities include establishment of a pilot steering committee, development of a 15-step general pilot implementation plan, two follow-up technical and planning workshops, acquisition of material, and equipment and training of GoBF cadaster agents.

Its role as facilitator in the GoBF initiative to develop and implement a SIF pilot activity reinforces the institutional security of the NLO. The duties assigned to the NLO are not limited to facilitation of the specific component of the pilot that is to be implemented in a rural commune, but also require the NLO to serve as a collaborator and advisor to the government on a broad range of practical issues related to design and development of the overall SIF pilot. Moreover, the NLO serves as a communications link across GoBF agencies: while the primary GoBF agencies involved in the SIF pilot are the General Direction of Taxes (DGI), the Ministry of Urbanism and the Ministry in charge of computerizing and modernizing government record-keeping and information storage, the NLO is also working to keep other key GoBF actors such as the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Decentralization fully informed of SIF proposals, plans and progress. In short, in the course of application of the 15-step plan to design, prepare and implement the pilot activity, collaboration between the NLO and a broad range of GoBF agencies has become routine.

The timing of this GoBF pilot initiative dovetails with successful conclusion of the Mobile Application to Secure Tenure (MAST) pilot activity in Tanzania. As a result of NLO efforts to keep GoBF agencies informed and to raise awareness of the MAST option, the GoBF agrees that MAST is a promising technology and that its adaptation for application in the rural zones of Burkina Faso context is likely to yield positive results. From the perspective of the NLO, the double-objective is to improve reliability and transparency of (as well as its own access to) land property rights information in Burkina Faso, while at the same time consolidating its role as a key actor and a reliable partner of the GoBF and other stakeholders in the domain of land governance.

In Burkina Faso, USAID is building the capacity of the Burkina Faso National Land Observatory (NLO), to ensure transparency of land tenure and property rights.  After nearly a year of start-up activities, the NLO and its Board of Directors convened a meeting May 28–29 to validate the NLO’s five-year observation work program and annual work plan (developed with input from a wide variety of stakeholders).  On June 16 in an event that featured speeches by officials from the US Embassy and the Ministries of Agriculture and Urbanism, the NLO was officially launched. This event was an opportunity to raise the visibility of the NLO, to distribute the first issue of the NLO bulletin to general assembly members and partners, and to maintain dialogues with a variety of potential donors.

The core activity of Burkina Faso’s NLO is the collection, storage and processing, and diffusion of land tenure information. Achievement of an effective land information management system built on these three components will improve land tenure security by increasing transparency and expanding the base of shared information regarding land rights and issues among stakeholders; educating the general public as well as specialists on pertinent land tenure topics, debates, challenges and possible solutions; and improving the quality and quantity of information available to policy and decision makers.

The NLO has developed separate and detailed strategies for each of the three major components of its land tenure information management system. The core of the NLO work plan for the 12-month period June 2015 through May 2016 consists primarily of implementation of these strategies. Each strategy is organized on the basis of fourteen land tenure issue areas, each of which is analyzed through the respective lenses of rural land tenure and urban land tenure.

Information collection: The NLO is putting into place protocols with government agencies, local government land tenure services, and development partners that will specify the types of information targeted and the collection procedures specific to each information source. The protocols will be progressively implemented throughout the year according to a prioritization of issue areas and associated indicators.

Information storage and processing: The NLO has identified sets of attributes and parameters that are being put into place for each tracking indicator. Thus the information storage system is to be organized based on indicator “type” (i.e., indicators’ association with issue areas), definitions of indicators as well as of key terms used in definitions, defined unit values, frequency of information collection, baseline value of indicator, and disaggregations of the indicator that will be tracked (for example, by gender). The coding system and categories of metadata for the information storage system are defined in the NLO information storage and processing strategy document. Construction of the template will be completed in June-July 2015 and population of the database will take place throughout the year as information is collected. A technical support mission sponsored by USAID is scheduled for August to review and evaluate the information storage system and processing plans and capabilities, and to identify training needs for NLO staff related to information management.

Information diffusion: The NLO has developed a communications strategy that targets: diffusion of collected and processed land tenure information; establishment of a Burkinabe community of practice for land tenure; and education/awareness raising of the general public on land tenure issues. Highlights of the communications strategy to be implemented June 2015–May 2016 include: production of a quarterly NLO Bulletin (first issue to be published in June 2015); regional and national workshops and conferences; conduct and publication of special thematic studies; production of a video documentary on targeted land tenure themes and radio programming; and active maintenance of a dedicated website on which all NLO products will be published.

Lobbying for improved land tenure policy: The NLO is targeting Feb-March 2016 for an initial round of communications and lobbying of Burkinabe lawmakers with the objective of improving land tenure policy and legislation. The targeted dates for this activity assume that the NLO information management system has matured to a level that yields a reliable basis and justification for targeted policy improvements.

On December 16, 2016, the US Government released its new National Action Plan (NAP) on Responsible Business Conduct. The purpose of the NAP is to reinforce and strengthen the US Government’s role in advancing responsible business conduct (RBC) while fostering an environment that supports such conduct by businesses operating overseas. As a part of its commitment to promoting responsible business conduct, USAID is supporting Responsible Land-Based Investment Pilots under the Evaluation, Research and Communications (ERC) Task Order of the Strengthening Tenure and Resource Rights (STARR) IQC.

The Responsible Land-Based Investment Pilots began with a collaborative co-creation process that brought together eight teams to discuss and design projects that would implement the New Alliance’s Analytical Framework for Responsible Land-Based Investment in African Agriculture. Five teams moved forward to the proposal stage and of these, one—the Indufor, Moringa and Illovo consortium—was selected by a scientific review panel to move forward to award stage. Indufor, N.A., LLC presented a proposal to create an enhanced due diligence process for use by its partner, European impact investment firm The Moringa Partnership. Indufor’s initial focus will be on an enhanced review of a proposed investment to expand a cocoa plantation in southeastern Cameroon. Indufor will analyze and improve this due diligence approach over the course of the pilot.

In addition, in partnership with Illovo Sugar, Ltd., Indufor will develop a participatory approach to map and secure local land rights at an existing investment in Mozambique. Indufor will also help to develop a grievance mechanism for use by local stakeholders and a multi-stakeholder platform to support responsible land-based investments in Mozambique. Key goals for this pilot include reducing risk of harm to local communities and to investors while securing local land rights of women and men.

Early in 2016 USAID issued a Call for Expressions of Interest to organizations that might be interested in working with the Agency to co-create an approach to implementing the New Alliance’s Analytical Framework for Responsible Land-Based Agricultural Investments (AF).  USAID was interested in identifying private sector investors with existing or new investments who would be willing to test the provisions of the AF at the operational level.  The new pilot is, as a result, crafting practices that aim to reduce risks for stakeholders by improving efforts to understand, identify and recognize local land rights; assess direct and indirect impacts of investments on tenure rights; create appropriate mitigation efforts; enhance community participation and consultation; improve negotiations and contracting with local people; improve grievance mechanisms and processes; strengthen transparency and food security, reduce corruption and recognize human rights and environmental sustainability.

During this quarter the eight organizations that were selected move beyond the Call for Expression of Interest (EOI) stage were invited to participate in a co-creation workshop along with USAID. These organizations, along with representatives from USAID and ERC, gathered together in two separate locations: one group met in Landover, MD while the other group met in Pretoria, South Africa. Connected via a video conference link, the two groups brainstormed ways to apply the Analytical Framework to existing and prospective investments in several African countries. Immediately following the co-creation workshop the eight organizations broke into broke into five working teams.

In mid-August, each team produced a draft Concept Paper outlining how the team would “road test” the Framework to meet the goals outlined above.  USAID and ERC provided extensive comments to each team and engaged each in conversation to focus and strengthen their drafts.  Finally, in mid-September, four of the five teams submitted a final Concept Paper.  In late September, an independent panel of experts reviewed the four papers and selected two papers to tentatively move forward to award stage.

In the next quarter ERC will continue award negotiations with each of the two teams and, should negotiations proceed successfully, will submit appropriate materials to the Contracting Officer for review and approval.