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We envision a world in which land governance systems, both formal and informal, are effective, accessible, and responsive for all. This is possible when land tenure and property rights are recognized as critical development issues and when the United States Government and its development partners demonstrate consistent attention and a firm commitment to supporting coordinated policies and programs that clarify and strengthen the land tenure and property rights of all members of society, enabling broad-based economic growth, gender equality, reduced incidence of conflicts, enhanced food security, improved resilience to climate change, and effective natural resource management.
Mission Statement
The USAID Land Tenure and Resource Management (LTRM) Office will lead the United States Government to realize international efforts—in accordance with the U.S. Government’s Land Governance Policy—to clarify and strengthen the land tenure and property rights of all members of society—individuals, groups and legal entities, including those individuals and groups that are often marginalized, and the LTRM Office will help ensure that land governance systems are effective, accessible, and responsive. We will achieve this by testing innovative models for securing land tenure and property rights and disseminating best practice as it relates to securing land rights and improving resource governance within the USG and our development partners.
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Displaying 421 - 425 of 440Mobile Application to Secure Tenure: Tanzania
General
Under the Evaluation, Research and Communication (ERC) project, USAID is piloting a project to crowd-source land rights information at the village level in Tanzania using mobile technology. The Mobile Application to Secure Tenure (MAST) project (formerly the Mobile Technology Pilot) supports identified needs of the Government of Tanzania to improve land governance and lower the cost of land certification programs. The pilot tests a new, participatory approach for capturing land rights information, as well as a lower cost methodology for quickly building a reliable database of land rights claims. MAST may be particularly helpful to the Government of Tanzania as an alternative to more traditional, and more costly, land administration interventions. Formal land administration systems (LAS) in developing countries have generally not met the need for accessible, cost effective, and appropriately nuanced land registration. As a result, large majorities of rural dwellers (and many urban dwellers) live without formalized rights to land and other valuable resources. This lack of documentation may constrain the ability of individuals and communities to leverage their land-based assets for improved economic outcomes, to limit environmental harms, and to engage in collaborative contracting with prospective investors in land that leads to equitable sharing of benefits. Given rising concerns related to inappropriate and potentially harmful transfers of land rights from vulnerable populations to domestic and foreign investors, many tenure experts view the need to document existing rights in a participatory and efficient way as a high priority. Through the Mobile Application to Secure Tenure project, USAID will test the hypothesis that under certain conditions mobile technologies that support crowd-sourced information about a variety of land rights/tenure claims can be linked to databases that government can use to issue formal documentation in a more cost effective and time sensitive manner or serve as an independent registry of claims, thus, increasing land tenure security. The pilot approach combines relatively inexpensive and readily available mobile technologies (e.g., GPS/GNSS-enabled smart phones and tablets) coupled with broadly participatory crowd-sourced data collection methods in rural and underserved settings. The approach will train civil society representatives and/or local community members to use technology developed for this purpose to gather land rights and tenure information. Source code for the MAST Android application is now available on GitHub.
Property Rights and Artisanal Diamond Development II: Côte d’Ivoire
General
The Property Rights and Artisanal Diamond Development (PRADD) II program will build on the successes of the predecessor PRADD project that was implemented under the Property Rights and Resource Governance Task Order. PRADD and PRADD II were developed to support country compliance with the Kimberley Process (KP), “a joint governments, industry and civil society initiative to stem the flow of conflict diamonds – rough diamonds used by rebel movements to finance wars against legitimate governments.” The overarching goal of PRADD and PRADD II are to increase the percentage of diamonds entering the legal chain of custody, while improving the livelihoods of artisanal diamond mining communities. PRADD II is financed through a Congressional Earmark in support of the Clean Diamond Trade Act and managed by USAID’s Land Tenure and Property Rights Division within the E3 Bureau. The LTPR Division closely coordinates with the US Department of State and US Geological Survey who also provide support to the KPCS. PRADD II will continue to be a landmark program for the United States Government (USG), the Kimberley Process and the development community at large. PRADD was one of the first and largest development projects concentrated on the Kimberley Process and artisanal diamond mining challenges. Significantly, PRADD has been instrumental in helping the KPCS modify its goals from a narrow focus on traceability, regulation and enforcement systems to a broader focus recognizing the role of economic development in bringing rough diamonds into legitimate chains of custody, and consequently better addressing the challenges of conflict diamonds. This transition is demonstrated by the recent adoption of the Washington Declaration at the 2012 Kimberley Process Plenary meetings that occurred in November in Washington, DC. Due to the limited number of development institutions and experiences in the artisanal mining sector, PRADD II will continue to test and evaluate approaches to achieving its objectives while also consolidating program successes, to encourage other donors and governments to implement PRADD-type programs to achieve KPCS objectives. PRADD II also operates in Guinea.
Food Security Research Program: Zambia
General
Agricultural productivity of most staple crops has been stagnant, in part due to Government of the Republic of Zambia’s (GRZ) agriculture policies that exacerbate the challenges and focus on maize-centric subsides to the exclusion and detriment of other crops. The Food Security Research Project (FSRP) focuses on sustainable agricultural policy reform and capacity building. FSRP builds capacity among agricultural sector planners to achieve improved policy making through applied agricultural economic research, policy analysis, outreach, and dialogue. The current emphasis is to indigenize the capacity by supporting and strengthening local Zambian institutions, recently helping establish the Zambia Indaba Agricultural Policy Research Institute (IAPRI). FSRP has supported and built capacity with the Zambia Government to develop and implement the CAADP Compact to collect and analyze agricultural data, including information on incomes, yields, diversification, land tenure, use of natural resources, household decision making, and other information. They provide outreach and communication to stakeholders for discussion and input.
Feed the Future Tanzania Land Tenure Assistance Activity
General
The objectives of the Feed the Future Tanzania Land Tenure Assistance activity (LTA), are to reduce land tenure-related risks and lay the groundwork for sustainable agricultural investment for both small holders and commercial investors throughout the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT) and in the value chains of focus for Tanzania’s Feed the Future program. Awarded in December 2015, initial LTA efforts will support approximately 41 communities and local government authorities in the Iringa and Mbeya Districts of Tanzania to clarify, document and certify land ownership. Efforts will also increase local understanding of land use and land rights. Activities will increase individual property rights and land tenure security and will help to lay the groundwork for sustainable investment for both small holders and commercial investors in the region while better protecting the interests of both the private sector and local communities. Objectives Assist villages and district administrations in completing the land-use planning process and delivering Certificates of Customary Rights of Occupancy (CCROs) in selected villages within two districts (Iringa and Mbeya) Build capacity of village land governance institutions (Iringa and Mbeya) Build capacity for district-level land governance (Iringa and Mbeya) Build capacity to use USAID’s Mobile Application to Secure Tenure (MAST) throughout SAGCOT and nationally. LTA will build upon the progress achieved through USAID’s MAST pilot to develop a low-cost, participatory land registration process, with a strong focus on strengthening women’s land rights.
Sudan Rural Land and Governance Project
General
The Sudan Rural Land and Governance (SRLG) project is a follow-on project to the Sudan Property Rights Program (SPRP), which assisted the Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS) to develop a draft land policy based on extensive public consultation and research, as well as provided support to build the capacity of the South Sudan Land Commission (SSLC). The Sudan Rural Land and Governance project helps to harmonize the land policy with the 2009 Land Act, supports two selected States and two Counties governments for more effective land administration and planning. The goal of this project is to define and establish rural land governance institutions and processes so as to promote property rights, encourage sound land use management, mitigate conflict, reduce the potential for rural landowners to be divested of their land, and to encourage broad based participation in future land allocation, management, and investment decisions.