Document Type: Monitoring and Evaluation

The Property Rights and Artisanal Diamond Development Project II (PRADD II) mobilized a Land Administration Specialist (LAS) during the period March 18 – April 3, 2014 to carry out an assessment of the mining cadastre system and propose solutions for administering artisanal mining areas.

PRADD II’s assessment overlapped with a similar, yet more detailed and far reaching, assessment being carried by an international mining and cadastre expert under the World Bank Projet d’Appui à la Gouvernance du Secteur Minier (PAGSEM) project. To avoid duplication of effort, since PAGSEM has agreed to share the consultant’s report, PRADD’s assessment was realigned to focus more on possible areas of assistance where PRADD II could help improve the administration of artisanal mining operating licenses, artisanal mining production data, support for USGS in the collection of geological and geomorphological data, spatially based data collection for M&E purposes, and conceptualization of project activities connected with strengthening the protection of surface tenure rights in areas where ASM is being carried out.

This report first looks at critical observations coming from this consultancy with an emphasis on key issues affecting the ASM sector, such as the poor coordination with the Centre de promotion et de développement minier (CPDM), inappropriate approaches to records management, and constraints associated with the government approach to parceling (known as parcellisation in French) of ASM zones. It then goes on to propose activities and approaches for overcoming these constraints, while raising the profile of other topics such as the formalization of customary surface tenure rights in ASM zones.

This report is an impact assessment of the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Justice Project, which was implemented by Landesa and its prime contractor Tetra Tech ARD, to pilot an approach for improving women’s access to justice, particularly related to women’s land rights, by enhancing the customary justice system in one target area: Ol Pusimoru sub-location, Mau Forest, Kenya. The Justice Project consisted of: (1) delivery of a training curriculum to targeted groups (Chiefs, Elders, women and youth) focused on civic education, legal literacy, rights and responsibilities related to land and forest resources (with special emphasis on rights of women and children), and skill-building; (2) facilitated community conversations with target groups; (3) peer training for targeted groups to share information with others in the community; and (4) public information and education activities to reach the broader community.

Prior to the implementation of PRADD, a local survey research firm, Subah-Belleh Associates (SBA), conducted a survey to assess conditions in project and control areas, inform project programming, and serve as a basis for evaluating the impacts of the project activities. This baseline survey was administered to 826 mining households in three counties in Western Liberia: Bomi, Cape Mount, and Gbarpolu. The baseline survey was conducted during the period February to March 2011.

During August 2012, a second survey was administered to 639 mining households in the same three areas to assess changes since the baseline and to evaluate the impacts of project activities. The short timeframe between the baseline and end-line surveys was due to an earlier-than-anticipated closing of the project, which was in turn due to budget cuts combined with poor responsiveness on the part of the Ministry of Lands, Mines and Energy in Liberia. It must be noted that the short interval between the two surveys compromised the amount of attitudinal and behavioral change to be expected due to the project’s activities. This report presents the results of the end-line survey.

This is USAID assessment on St. Lucia’s land market and property rights which discusses the history of land markets, objectives of the program, and analysis of the program.

This is a USAID assessment on Honduras’s land market and property rights, which discusses the history of land markets, objectives of the program, and analysis of the program.

This report presents the results of the baseline survey as well as some analysis of the data and implications for future programming as part of the Property Rights and Artisanal Diamond Development (PRADD) Liberia project, a USAID-funded intervention to clarify property rights and extend training and outreach to small-scale diamond miners in two areas in Liberia. The survey was conducted prior to the start of project implementation in January-February 2011 for the purposes of an impact evaluation following the conclusion of the project. 826 artisanal diamond mining households participated in the 144 question survey that included questions covering household demographic information and economic activity, mining activities, conflicts and security, policy awareness and perceptions, household assets, and opinions on mining-related issues. The survey covered the two areas in which PRADD-Liberia activities will take place, as well as two additional sites designed to serve as control areas to form the basis for a comparison between outcomes in project and non-project areas. To our knowledge, this is the first large sample household survey of artisanal diamond miners that has been undertaken anywhere in the world.

This report proposes policy, legal, and regulatory interventions to improve the legal framework governing Liberia’s Artisanal and Small-scale Diamond Mining sector with a view to improve diamond production registration. It is based on an analysis of specific gaps and contradictions between mining laws and policies and customary rights practices.

ARD is implementing a project, Property Right Artisanal Diamond Development in Liberia. The project is being funded by the United States Congress. It is being implemented as a pilot project in two diamond mining areas in the country. It is required that the project be evaluated after two years of implementation to measure impacts made by the project. ARD requested SubahBelleh Associates (SBA) to implement baseline data collection for the evaluation. This assignment was undertaken in April of 2011. This Technical Report provides an account on the process of the implementation of the data collection undertaken by SBA.

The USAID/Kenya ProMara Program provides a solid programming platform to build readiness for forest carbon emissions reduction by adjusting existing activities to contribute to the enabling conditions required to participate in the forest carbon market (see Section 2 for details) or by adding activities (see Appendix D). All forest carbon activities would have to be implemented within the current project program budget. At the time of writing this report, it was not known how much of the project budget is from global climate change (GCC) funding sources, making it difficult to propose an appropriate scope and scale of activities or to formulate a ProMara climate change action plan. The delivery of financing based on GHG emission reductions will likely not be possible within the two-year time frame of the project, but important contributions to readiness for carbon financing can be made. In addition to forest-related mitigation activities, a climate change vulnerability and adaptation assessment could be conducted for the ProMara Program in rapid appraisal fashion, in the expectation that key adaptive strategies could be quickly identified and implemented. Even without this assessment, it would be possible to include climate change vulnerability as a selection criterion for livelihood interventions and include climate change in the communications strategy.

The USAID mission to Mali requested a summary review of the evolution of land tenure policies of the Republic of Mali. A two-person team carried out a literature review and short field visit to Mali in May 2010, under the auspices of USAID’s Property Rights and Resource Governance Program (PRRGP). The resulting study suggests that the relationship in Mali between land tenure and food security is strong. In principle, land tenure security—the expectation that land rights will be respected—should encourage increased investment in agricultural production. In turn, this will contribute to improved income levels from the sale of surplus production, job creation in the agricultural and ancillary sectors, enhanced income opportunities along the extended value chain, and expanded trade opportunities. In the longer term, increased production and income improves food security by expanding both availability and access to food. Unfortunately, the lack of land tenure security in Mali limits the willingness of small-scale producers and agro-investors to invest in expanding and intensifying agricultural production. The Government of Mali is making strides to increase tenure security through new public policies of decentralization and devolution of authority to control and manage land and other natural resources. In the long term, this should increase the country’s capacity to ensure household and national food security.