Document Type: Briefs

This research brief explores the rights to land and natural resources of women in de facto unions. The brief aims to (1) improve understanding of the experiences and rights to land of women living in de facto unions as opposed to those living in formal unions; (2) identify root causes of women’s decisions to live in de facto unions; and (3) offer practical recommendations that can strengthen the land rights of informally-married women.

Secure land rights reduce conflict, empower women and youth, increase food security, promote economic investment, and address climate change.

However, 70% of land in the developing world is undocumented. In many places, it is prohibitively expensive and difficult for rural people to map and record their land rights. USAID is using mobile technology and participatory approaches to solve this problem.

USAID has developed a suite of low-cost, open-source Mobile Applications to Secure Tenure (MAST), providing flexible tools that help people and communities secure rights—whether customary or formal—to their most important asset: land. Download the full brochure to learn more.

More information and stories on USAID’s mobile technology can be found here.

The Land and Rural Development Program (LRDP) is a five-year task order funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the Strengthening Tenure and Resource Rights (STARR) Indefinite Quantity Contract. LRDP is intended to assist the government of Colombia to strengthen its institutional capacity to develop tools, systems, and skills that will enable it to fulfill its mandate to resolve land issues at the heart of Colombia’s decades-long internal conflict.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS

Community knowledge of women’s land rights strengthened through 12 radio dramas about formalization, restitution, and rural development written and performed by female victims of the armed conflict

Women in Colombia have been disproportionately affected by the armed conflict, and more than half of the estimated 6 million internally displaced people in Colombia are female—many of whom are now widows. To give voice to women and families who were forced to abandon their homes during the war, LRDP collaborated with 59 female survivors of conflict in Cauca, Cesar, Meta, Montes de Maria, and Tolima to write and produce 12 radio dramas that narrate stories on women’s access to land. The stories were written to increase awareness among rural communities about women’s right to land and to provide information about the ways government institutions can support them to claim this right. They also demystify the processes of land restitution and formalization for rural women by discussing the procedures for both in simple, easy to understand language.

The dramas use relevant stories, language, and scenarios familiar to local communities, ensuring that they are culturally appropriate and effective. They were developed in collaboration with local government institutions, including the Land Restitution Unit and the Secretariat of Women. They will air on community radio stations throughout the country over the course of 2016, and will also be disseminated through other community channels. Through USAID activities, 50% of the beneficiaries of land restitution and formalization will be women.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS

82 Afro-descendant families stand to benefit from collective restitution ruling

During Colombia’s conflict, thousands of indigenous and Afro-Colombian people were displaced from their land. This population was disproportionately affected by the conflict, and poverty rates among this landless group are some of the highest in Colombia. Before the war, the Eladio Ariza community, a group of Afro-descendants located on the western fringe of Montes de María, consisted of 200 families with rights to 1,600 hectares of land. Post-conflict, the community has been reduced to less than half of its original population and holds a fraction of its land. The Eladio Ariza community has been trying to use restitution to regain its territorial rights for many years, without success. The restitution claim process requires a high volume of detailed property information, and communities involved in these complex collective cases often do not have the tools or capacity to develop the robust case file needed to successfully win their case. To date, only 20 ethnic restitution claims have been submitted to judges in Colombia. Of these, only two have completed the process and received a ruling.

In 2014, LRDP began supporting Eladio Ariza to file a collective restitution claim—the first of its kind in the entire Caribbean Coast. Working with trusted experts, community leaders, and the Land Restitution Unit (LRU), USAID used GPS and social cartography to identify and document the community’s territorial boundaries. LRDP then gathered and compiled the information needed for the 82 families involved in the restitution claim and built LRU capacity to document and process this and other similar cases in the future, ensuring the protection of this vulnerable group.

In December 2015, after many years of waiting, the Eladio Ariza Community Council’s collective claim was successfully admitted by restitution judges—a groundbreaking advancement in the protection of their rights. Although the case has yet to be ruled on, its admission in court marks a promising step toward guaranteeing the land rights and economic future of the 82 families involved in this case.

This brief is a summary of: Community Land and Natural Resource Tenure Recognition: Review of Country Experiences. This global review of community land and resource tenure recognition approaches seeks to identify lessons from existing experiences, particularly in Southeast Asian countries, to inform the policy and legislative process in Myanmar and contribute to the design of pilots for identifying the most suitable community land and resource tenure recognition approaches within the context of Myanmar.

The STARR IDIQ is a $700 million, multi-faceted field support mechanism available for field Missions and other Offices and Bureaus to buy in to for activities through August 1, 2020. STARR is designed to provide short- and long-term technical assistance to improve rights and access to land and other resources through targeted or integrated approaches. Task Orders under STARR can advance USAID objectives and best practice by coupling technical assistance with building knowledge, testing hypotheses, and implementing innovative approaches to strengthening property rights and secure land tenure. STARR is managed by the Land Tenure and Resource Management Office in the Bureau for Economic Growth, Education, and the Environment (E3).

Rwanda is a USAID Feed the Future (FTF) target country with a strategy covering 2011-2015. Rwanda has a strong rural agricultural profile, but is cited as having high levels of malnutrition with a need to increase agricultural production to feed a population that is the densest in Africa (405 people/km2). Virtually all arable land is already under cultivation – 40 percent of it on slopes steeper than 28 degrees. Soil fertility has rapidly declined due to erosion and severe soil nutrient mining, with between 39 and 51 percent of agricultural land already degraded. Despite recent increases in agricultural production, Rwanda still has many cases of acute malnutrition.

Although land is understood to be a fundamental source of natural capital when it comes to food production, the connections between access to secure land rights and sustainable land use on the one hand and agricultural productivity, food security and nutrition on the other are frequently overlooked. This brief aims to draw out the various links and point to sources of empirical evidence to support them. Specifically, it demonstrates that:

• Access to land is fundamental to smallholder food production, which is the primary source of food and nutrition for low income, rural families.
• Secure land rights incentivize agricultural investments and improved agricultural practices, leading to improved productivity and food production.
• When land rights are secure, land rental markets can flourish, resulting in improved allocations of land to more productive farmers while providing land owners with a reliable source of income and livelihood security.
• When women have increased control over land and rights to make decisions over land, investments, and production, their productivity is enhanced and food is directed to their families with better nutrition outcomes.
• Secure land rights reduce land disputes and conflicts, thereby facilitating improved land use and productivity.
• Tenure security facilitates a more prosperous economic and agricultural transformation, thereby curbing trends toward rampant urban poverty and other social ills.
• Inclusive land use planning approaches enable farmers – women and men – to have a say in how to utilize land so that it is more productive.
• By strengthening the capacity of land sector service providers, improved services that enhance land use and land rights are created, leading to improved agricultural productivity and food security.

USAID’s Property Rights and Artisanal Diamond Development II Project (PRADD II) considers the artisanal diamond mining sector an engine of economic growth. During boom periods of diamond extraction, the rural economy often flourishes. But when diamonds are mined out or diamond prices fall due to international market forces, the local economy often collapses. To mitigate this, PRADD II encourages household income diversification in Côte d’Ivoire and Guinea. Recently, the project began providing technical and material support to small groups of highly motivated women to plant manioc, peppers, rice and other crops.

The effort was launched in March 2015 in the village of Dona, Côte d’Ivoire, in the presence of Kimberley Process (KP) officials from a dozen countries meeting there to evaluate diamond governance.

Women in Dona are famous for their manioc-based attieke, a specialty dish, but few can afford quality digging implements for the hard work of manioc growing or the money to crush the tuber at a mill at a nearby village.

“Today we are ready to work,” said Dosso Aminata, the vice president of the women’s association as a PRADD II-purchased manioc crushing machine started whirring.

“When I invited PRADD II to Côte d’Ivoire in 2012, I never thought that it would help our mothers,” said an emotional Madame Thes, Côte d’Ivoire’s head of diamond compliance.

On the surface, the new equipment pools and training support have nothing to do with diamonds, an activity mainly conducted by men. However, PRADD II believes that empowering women is not just good for women but good for miners as well. The reason is diamond finance and diamond risk.

In a recent survey of miners, PRADD II found that over half had not found a rough diamond stone in over six months. During that time, miners still had to eat, purchase quality tools and buy fuel for pumps to remove water from flooded pits.

Most miners have a “patron” who covers those costs. But in recent years, as miners have become more settled and diamonds scarce, the cost of financing has gone up.

“When I started financing I’d give a sack of rice a week and that was it,” said Ali Bah, a local collector. “Now I have to pay money and food each week, not just for the miner but for his whole family. Plus cover health costs. School fees. It’s too much!”

This translates into less income for miners if they find a stone, since the patron will deduct all he spent from the price. The result is poor miners and poor mining households.

If women bring in more money and sources of food, this can make a big difference. “We mine but find little these days, so women selling manioc helps us,” said Diomande Segbe from Sangana.

PRADD II aims to help the women in Côte d’Ivoire and Guinea become more productive and organized. The project even has plans to train women’s groups to rent out mining equipment like motor pumps—a highly profitable venture.

These PRADD II initiatives to work with women’s associations will not in themselves change diamond financing, but the project can play a role. This initiative shows that even though most women do not mine diamonds, when it comes to mining economics, gender matters.

Land and Rural Development Program (LRDP) is a five-year task order funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the Strengthening Tenure and Resource Rights (STARR) Indefinite Quantity Contract. LRDP is intended to assist the government of Colombia to strengthen its institutional capacity to develop tools, systems, and skills that will enable it to fulfill its mandate to resolve land issues at the heart of Colombia’s decades-long internal conflict.

LRDP BY THE NUMBERS:

121 – Campesinos and 279 hectares of land benefit from irrigation system overhaul in Cesar, improving the quantity and quality of agricultural yields

USAID, through LRDP, mobilized US$480,000 of INCODER funding to rehabilitate irrigation systems in four districts in Cesar, benefitting 121 small producers who farm over 279 hectares of cassava, fruit, plantains, and corn; improving the quantity and quality of agricultural yields. LRDP conducted technical studies related to topography, cartography, system design, and budgeting; developed recommendations for the sustainability of irrigation investments; and strengthened management plans for user organizations that oversee irrigation systems in these districts. The project also defined the technical and environmental requirements for ensuring the conservation of water sources in these areas.

50% – Reduction in time it takes to process requests for legal information in support of restitution processes

USAID, through LRDP, supported the Superintendence of Notary and Registry (SNR) in the design and rollout of a new internal electronic platform that provides legal analyses of land parcels—including information about the landowner is, the legal state of the land, and whether the land is microfocalized (and thus available for restitution). This information is critical to conduct efficient and timely land restitution processes. Previously, when a GOC entity needed this type of legal study, it had to mail in a formal request to the SNR, which would then process it manually and mail it back by. With the new electronic system, the legal analysis is performed immediately, representing a 50% reduction in processing time and a 100% reduction in the time needed to access information.

USAID, through LRDP, actively supported a team of high-level GOC and international experts to design Colombia’s Misión Rural, a policy and action framework that represents the GOC’s 20-year vision for the country’s agriculture and rural development sectors, and includes the reforms outlined in the peace negotiations. The framework includes recommendations for short-, mid-, and long-term solutions that will open markets, improve land use, resolve bottlenecks, increase social inclusion, and decentralize GOC efforts. Critical LRDP inputs that were adopted include the creation of two new entities, the Land Authority and Rural Development Fund. Short-term solutions have been delivered to President Santos with recommendations for implementation using his extraordinary powers.

55 – Powers of Attorney signed, guaranteeing legal representation for secondary occupants in Montes de Maria and Cesar

Cesar and Montes de María are home to an estimated 1,049 secondary occupants—rural families who are occupying land that is legally owned by others. Many of these individuals require legal support but cannot afford or access it, and to date only 43 secondary occupants have received legal representation in these areas. In October 2015, USAID, through LRDP, supported the Ombudsman’s Office in securing 55 powers of attorney for secondary occupants in these regions, ensuring their legal representation throughout the restitution process. LRDP will continue to train public defenders on effective methods for representing secondary occupants, building the GOC’s capacity to serve more of this population in the future.

20-year – vision for Colombia’s agriculture and rural development sector, known as Mission Rural, designed with support from USAID, through LRDP

PROGRESS TO DATE ON LRDP’S KEY INDICATORS

30,792 – Families with secure land tenure through land formalization and land restitution (baseline: 21,789 | 2018 goal: 32,560)*

39.3% – Project beneficiaries who are women (baseline: 38% | 2018 goal: 50%)*

2,457 – Project beneficiaries who are ethnic minorities (baseline: 0 | 2018 goal: 9,865)**

32,744 – Parcels of land analyzed for use in the Land Fund (baseline: 0 | 2018 goal: 47,000)**

48% – Increase in public agricultural investments in areas that have traditionally received low funding (baseline: US$6,206,000 in LRDP focus regions| 2018 goal: 90%)**

422 – Secondary occupants with rights represented (baseline: 0 | 2018 goal: 800)**

* Cut-off date for progress: Dec. 31, 2014. The 30,792 figure is not cumulative; it is from 2014 alone.

** Cut-off date for progress: Aug. 31, 2015

In Rwanda, all wetlands belong to the State and several laws frame processes for wetland management and protection; however, there is a lack of clarity surrounding the procedures for determining uses of wetlands that ensure their long term sustainability. Without a clear mandate on how projects in wetlands should be approved from the government, there has been some lack of detail surrounding several key issues pertaining to wetlands use and protection, including: definitions of terms, land tenure and pre-existing freehold titles, public use of State land, and sufficiency of protection mechanisms. In spite of these issues, there is strong political will to improve and adapt wetland policies so that sustainable use balances conservation of wetland areas.

This research examines current wetland policies, as well as draft legislation being considered to formalize use approval procedures.

The specific objectives of this brief are to:

• determine policies, laws and regulations that currently govern use, protection and tenure of wetlands in Rwanda;
• explain inconsistences between definitions in policies, and their impact on effective wetlands management;
• explain processes in practice for leasing wetland by government entities;
• analyze some of the major issues or contestations that surface around wetlands in terms of their use, tenure, and protection;
• provide recommendations for policy and practice that help to reduce poverty, protect land rights, and ensure sustainable land use and conservation of wetlands.

Historically, interactions between civil society organizations (CSOs) and the government of Burma on land issues have been largely contentious. Over the past year, USAID and other donors have supported government and civil society in developing a National Land Use Policy through a participatory approach. The first consultation and request for public comments in late 2014 opened a door for participation in the policy’s development. Civil society was largely critical of this early process, as there was limited opportunity for direct, constructive dialogue. To address the shortcoming, USAID and partners worked closely with government representatives to design an extended second phase consultation process. Two expert roundtables were open to all CSOs, with each drawing over 100 participants from across the country.

During the first roundtable, CSOs were invited to present position statements and discuss the draft policy with government stakeholders, representing a new level of civil society engagement in the policy development process. Even more remarkable was the mixing of government and civil society in small breakout groups, building a spirit of cooperation. Thin Maung Than from the Ministry of Environmental Conservation and Forestry (MOECAF) Land Information Unit said, “I have never seen Government officials and civil society representatives work together like this before.” Ku Ku Ju, of the local organization Land in Our Hands, followed by saying, “We want to thank the Government and the organizers of this dialogue for listening to our concerns and taking them seriously.”

The open participation of government and civil society continued during the second roundtable with mixed breakout groups leading to productive, actionable recommendations. U Shwe Thein, Chairman of the civil society organization Land Core Group, stated, “The participants have done a very good job of openly and honestly debating the issues in their working groups, and coming up with useful suggestions that the policy revision drafting team can use.” The Deputy Minister of MOECAF stated in closing remarks that, “Those who participated in this event should be thanked for their hard work, productive outputs, and advice on the National Land Use Policy. This will improve the policy and help the country develop sustainably in a peaceful manner.”