The mobile technology used by USAID in Tanzania features spatial visualization of parcels.
Last week, we described how USAID uses participatory approaches to strengthen and secure land rights. This week, we highlight an innovative participatory approach to formalizing land rights using mobile phones.

USAID/Kenya/OTI Deputy Country Representative, Galeeb Kachra, and Assistant Lands Commissioner, Mr Gituku, in front of the Thika Lands Registry

In the first week of June, the International Land Coalition (ILC) coordinated a workshop to design a Rangelands Observatory, intended to link a network of organizations that will partner in an effort to collectively monitor land acquisitions in rangeland areas, and promote more participatory decision making in regards to land use.

On March 14, the Haiti Property Law Working Group released Haiti Land Transaction Manual, Vol. 1: A how-to guide for the legal sale of property in Haiti. This manual is an important step in the reconstruction efforts in Haiti following the devastating 2010 earthquake, which have been greatly impeded by weak land administration systems and the resulting disputes over land and property. The new manual will help Haitians, international donors, and civil society navigate the country’s complex bureaucratic legal system.

On October 17th in Oslo, Norway, historic peace talks will begin between the government of Colombia and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Details on the negotiations are available in a recent article in the New York Times. This is a promising initiative with the potential to end the conflict and bring lasting peace and stability to Colombia. To illustrate the importance of land to the conflict, both parties have agreed that land and rural development will be the first issues to be addressed in the agenda proposed for negotiations.

USAID's property rights project in Timor Leste plays a key role in helping settle land disputes on the small island in Southeast Asia. A recent article written by IRIN, the humanitarian news and analysis service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, describes the history of conflict surrounding land by highlighting one woman's story and outlining current progress to establishing land rights.
To read the full article, click here.

Tim Fella, Senior Land Tenure and Conflict Advisor for USAID’s Land Tenure and Resource Management Office wrote an article that was featured in Devex's Newswire newsletter last week. An excerpt appears below.
As the International Year of Family Farming winds down, a new set of United Nations principles recognizes that in order to promote global food security, we need to acknowledge and promote family farmers as key investors in agriculture and food systems.

Why are secure property rights and good land governance fundamental to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)? Earlier this month, a group of experts provided answers to this question – and worked to build support for a prominent role for land tenure security and property rights in a Post-2015 MDG framework - at a side event at the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS).

According to a new research report from the Enough Project, there is a brief open window for peace to take root in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The DRC conflict, which has lasted for over two decades, has left more than 6 million people dead, displaced countless others within DRC and throughout the region, and has led to trans-boundary regional conflict.

On December 21st, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution on Agriculture Development and Food Security, which encourages countries to “give due consideration to implementing the Voluntary Guidelines (VGs) on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security.”

Working with customary legal systems to improve or ensure land tenure security or protecting property rights for people living under those systems is a substantial challenge. Much, though by no means all, development work focuses on improving the formal land administration systems – mapping, building cadastres, changing de jure laws, etc. But here is an example from Ghana of how to work with and within customary systems to create a more stable institutional environment – one that promotes investment and reduces conflict.

With the posting of the Kenya PROMARA Chief of Party, Ian Deshmukh, in August 2010 the PROMARA project has officially begun. PROMARA is a two-year PRRGP project working with USAID/Kenya in the Mau Forest Complex towards the southwest of Kenya. PROMARA, or “for the Mara”, aims to enhance sustainable and equitable management of Kenya’s rich biodiverse resource areas, which are essential to the protection of the human environment and natural ecosystems.
Kenya PROMARA Project Gets Underway.