Event Type: Event

Best Practices for Land Tenure and Natural Resource Governance in East, Central, and Southern Africa training event, March 1-7, 2009 (Nairobi, Kenya).

USAID/Washington is pleased to announce the USAID Short Course on Property Rights and Resource Governance Issues and Best Practices, scheduled for Fall 2012. The course is intended for approximately 35 USG foreign assistance practitioners interested in strengthening their knowledge and skills in applying LTPR in their economic, food security, governance, climate change, and natural resource, portfolios. The course has three objectives: 1. Exchange experiences and strengthen understanding of LTPR issues, best practices and their application to USG programming; 2. Introduce LTPR concepts and approaches at improving programmatic interventions; 3. Teach USG foreign assistance practitioners tools to address land tenure and property rights issues, or use land tenure and property rights interventions to strengthen economic, food security, governance and natural resource management objectives. This course also includes cross-cutting foci on the rights of women and other vulnerable populations. Through presentations, video, discussion and practical exercises based on country case studies, participants will share experience and strengthen their skills and expertise in the following: • LTPR concepts, current issues and interventions • Land and resource tenure for women and other vulnerable groups • Secure land rights as a critical factor for land markets, investment and agricultural growth • LTPR in natural resource management, biodiversity conservation, and climate change • Land and resource-based conflict and post-conflict stabilization • Competing priorities for land (food security, climate change and commercial pressures) The course agenda and other materials, when available, are located on the Training page. This course is being offered in conjunction with the Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation’s Conflict 102 course, which will be offered on October 29-30, 2012, so that interested participants have the opportunity for a full week of related training. Please register through USAID’s Learning Management System (LMS). Registration will close on October 21, 2012. For questions on how to use LMS or any other course queries, feel free to contact the course coordinators. Peter Giampaoli, Land Tenure and Climate Change Advisor, USAID Sandy Stark, Course Coordinator, TetraTech ARD Participant comments on the course “I enjoyed the course more than any other training I’ve had in Washington thus far.” “Really great course. One of the best I’ve attended so far. Made me reconsider – re-vision – the role of economic development in a land context” “This was one of the best trainings I’ve attended while at USAID. It is clear that the content and learning approaches were well thought through. I really appreciated the country case studies – the materials, the expert as part of our group, the way the exercise mirrored what we were learning, the video clips, the examples provided from actual USAID program experiences”

USAID/Washington is pleased to announce the USAID Short Course on Best Practices for Land Tenure and Natural Resource Governance in Africa scheduled for October 8-11, 2012 in Monrovia, Liberia. The course will host approximately 35 decision makers from Africa and USG foreign assistance practitioners interested in strengthening their knowledge and skills in applying land tenure and property rights (LTPR) in their economic, governance and natural resource (biodiversity) portfolios. The course will provide participants with the opportunity to: 1. Exchange experiences, deepen discussion and strengthen understanding of land tenure and property rights issues, and their application to government and USAID programming; 2. Study land tenure and property rights approaches, best practices and tools aimed at improving programmatic interventions on critical issues in the region related to natural resources, agriculture and economic growth, and governance and conflict; 3. Learn tools to address land tenure and property rights issues, or use land tenure and property rights interventions to strengthen economic development, governance, conflict mitigation and natural resource management objectives. Focused on land and resource governance issues, the course aims to introduce LTPR concepts, approaches and tools aimed at improving programmatic interventions in economic growth, governance and natural resource management. Likewise, the course will teach participants tools to address land tenure and property rights issues and how to use land tenure and property rights interventions to strengthen economic, governance and natural resource management objectives. The course also includes cross-cutting foci on women’s rights and indigenous rights. This inter-active training course will be delivered through lectures by regional and international experts combined with participatory activities including a multi-round land markets simulation. Draft agenda and other materials for the course are available for download in Training. USAID officials should register through USAID’s Learning Management System (LMS). Registration will close on September 24, 2012. To register host-country government participants, please email Maria Echevarria (contact information below). For questions on how to use LMS or any other course queries, feel free to contact the course coordinators. Peter Giampaoli, Land Tenure and Climate Change Advisor, USAID Maria Echevarria, Course Coordinator, TetraTech ARD Illustrative evaluation comments by participants of past land training courses: “I’m glad I had the opportunity to take this course. I wish I had taken it 15 years ago.” “I can now make stronger arguments for coordinating with or including property rights components in my development-focused food security work” “The course was a great success as it dealt with the fundamental issues of Land Tenure and Property Rights governance in my country. It placed me in the right position to be able to deal with these issues back home and give appropriate advice to my policymakers”

USAID and MCC elected to convene this discussion because identifying common ground among various sides of the debate around land acquisition is difficult. There are divided views on the issue, even among different stakeholder groups, such as civil society and private sector. Objectives: 1) Bring together various actors around one table; 2) Move discussion forward; Large-scale acquisition mistakes occurred; need to respect local rights, need of private sector to protect investments, large scale and small investors; limit predation; 3) meet concerns of civil society in participatory fashion; 4) To achieve the right balance of investment and rights protection to achieve food security, an important Millennium Development goal.

Participants List
Roundtable Minutes

The Royal Tropical Institute (KIT), the University of Utrecht and LANDAC (IS Academy on Land Governance for Equitable and Sustainable Development) is organizing a training course for development professionals. The upcoming course will take place from 3rd – 7th of October 2011 in Amsterdam. The aim of this course is to strengthen capacity to deal with land and natural resource governance issues.

More information about this event…

This short course provided the USG Foreign Assistance Community in Washington DC and posts with concepts, approaches and tools aimed at improving the programming of land tenure and property rights in donor programs involving natural resources, climate change, economic growth, food security and governance.

The course was for USG foreign assistance practitioners interested in strengthening their knowledge and skills in applying LTPR in their economic, food security, governance, climate change, and natural resource, portfolios. The course objectives:

1. Exchange experiences and strengthen understanding of LTPR issues, best practices and their application to USG programming;
2. Introduce LTPR concepts and approaches at improving programmatic interventions;
3. Teach USG foreign assistance practitioners tools to address land tenure and property rights issues, or use land tenure and property rights interventions to strengthen economic, food security, governance and natural resource management objectives. This course also includes cross-cutting foci on the rights of women and other vulnerable populations.

Through presentations, video, discussion and practical exercises based on country case studies, participants shared experience and strengthened their skills and expertise in the following:

• LTPR concepts, current issues and interventions
• Land and resource tenure for women and other vulnerable groups
• Secure land rights as a critical factor for land markets, investment and agricultural growth
• LTPR in natural resource management, biodiversity conservation, and climate change
• Land and resource-based conflict and post-conflict stabilization
• Competing priorities for land (food security, climate change and commercial pressures)

Training materials are available for this course on the Training page of this website.

Please be advised: this training event has been cancelled. This interactive course is intended for USG foreign assistance practitioners interested in strengthening their knowledge and skills in applying land tenure and property rights in their portfolios. Through presentations, video, discussion and practical exercises, participants will share experience and strengthen their skills and expertise in the following:

• Land tenure and property rights concepts, current issues and interventions
• Land and resource-based conflict and post-conflict stabilization
• Land and resource tenure for women and other vulnerable groups
• Land markets and administration
• Land tenure in natural resource management, biodiversity conservation, and climate change

The course has three objectives: (1) Exchange experiences and strengthen understanding of Land Tenure and Property Rights (LTPR) issues, best practices internationally and their application to USAID programming (2) Introduce LTPR concepts and approaches aimed at improving programmatic interventions in economic growth, food security, governance, conflict mitigation, natural resource management, food security, and climate change; and (3) Teach USG foreign assistance practitioners tools to address land tenure and property rights issues.

On October 20, 2011, USAID’s Land Tenure and Property Rights Unit hosted a presentation on the results of a study titled “Research and Analysis of Carbon Rights and Institutional Mechanisms for Receiving and Distributing REDD+ Payments.”

The presentation was delivered by a team of researchers from TetraTech ARD and covered the research findings and tools developed as a result of a multitude of case studies and analyses across Africa, Asia and Latin America on approaches to defining carbon rights and related benefit sharing institutions.

The specific deliverables that were produced and were discussed included:

A report on opportunities to expand the devolution of rights to communities for forest management, including case studies;
A report on REDD+ and carbon rights, including case studies;
A guidebook on carbon rights legislation for USAID missions and technical staff;
A report on institutions for receiving and distributing carbon payments, including case studies;
An analytical tool for assessing current institutions and designing new institutions for REDD+ responsibilities.
Below are documents containing the presentations and supporting research.

Presentation Slides

Devolution of Forest Rights and Sustainable Forest Management
Presentation by Steven Lawry and Rebecca McLain

REDD+ and Carbon Rights: Lessons Learned from the Field
Presentation by Darryl Vhugen

Institutional Mechanisms for Sharing REDD+ Benefits
Presentation by Anne-Gaelle Javelle

Research Documents

New Publications on Climate Change, Carbon Rights, and Forest Governance

USAID and the State Department hosted an event on December 12, 2011 at the Tiffany Foundation in New York City to continue discussions about potential partnerships between artisanal miners in Africa, NGOs and the American diamond industry.

This event was designed to continue discussions began in October 2011 exploring options for a model that had a syndicate of buyers and a cooperative of miners. The model would be part of of the Property Rights and Artisanal Diamond Development (PRADD), a joint USAID and State Department project, that works with mining communities and the governments of Liberia and CAR to increase the amount of alluvial diamonds entering the formal chain of custody while improving the benefits accruing to mining communities.

Workshop Agenda (7kb PDF download)
Workshop Summary (114kb PDF download)

Below are links to PDF Versions of presentations and other materials from the event.

Property Rights and Artisanal Diamond Development Household Survey Results from Liberia(1093kb PDF download)
Presentation by Tim Fella
Full Report (1044kb PDF download)

Summary of the Alluvial Diamond Resource Potential and Production Capacity Assessment of the Central African Republic (1.7mb PDF download)
Presentation by Peter Chirico
Presentation Handout (81kb PDF download)

Artisanal Diamond Trading Schemes Lessons from the Peace Diamond Alliance Co-ops in Sierra Leone (1539kb PDF download)
Presentation by Estelle Levin

Fairtrade and Fairmined Gold (1.4mb PDF download)
Presentation by Gemma Cartwright

Expression of Interest Form (71kb PDF download)