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News & Events / Land rights matter: Impact of the project for Responsible Land Policy (ProPFR) in the Centre region of Cameroon

Land rights matter: Impact of the project for Responsible Land Policy (ProPFR) in the Centre region of Cameroon

14 November 2024
View over the shoulder, right hand holds a pen over a clipboard, left had holds a GPS tracking device.
View over the shoulder, right hand holds a pen over a clipboard, left had holds a GPS tracking device.

In Cameroon like most developing countries, access to land is still a challenge. Less than 30% of Cameroon’s land area is secured by collective or individual rights due in part to lengthy and expensive processes. Although the country’s ministry in charge of State property, Surveys and Land tenure (MINDCAF) is working towards better access to secure land, the legislation on land tenure is obsolete and the reform initiated in 2011 is still pending. Women, young people and people belonging to minority ethnic groups are particularly disadvantaged.

 

The project "Responsible Land Policy" (ProPFR) in Cameroon is being implemented since January 2023 and contributes to strengthening land use rights in the Centre Region of Cameroon (primarily in the municipalities of Nanga-Eboko and Yoko), safeguarding the livelihoods of the rural population and simultaneously promoting the protection and restoration of forest-rich landscapes.

The projects activities are centered around:

  • Raising awareness on the local populations’ land rights.
  • Fostering policy change for inclusive access and sustainable management of land resources
  • Supporting the prevention and management of conflicts (farmer-grazer conflicts, between farmers, between sedentary and transhumant pastoralists, between the local chiefdoms and populations etc.)
  • Supporting small agroforestry investors individually and in associations, cooperatives, and Common Initiative Groups (GICs) in preliminary activities like georeferencing, providing financial and technical support to officially register their community land for project investment to obtain securing documents (concessions) on the basis of the VGGT (Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security)
  • Promoting women, youths and minority ethnic group’s (e. g. Mbororo-Fulani) access to land.

 

Almost halfway through the projects’ implementation phase, interviews were conducted in several villages in ProPFR’s intervention zone – Mekoassim, Mankim, Ngouetou, and Mangaï – and at the level of central administration (MINDCAF) to get the impact ProPFR activities have had on an individual as well as collective level. The interviewees expressed their relief and satisfaction regarding the positive changes the project has initiated and continues to promote. Listen to the testimonials about peaceful cohabitation, easy and inclusive access to land, and sustainable use of land and its resources: Video.

 

Picture source: Consoler TAPIMENE, GIZ

Author(s)

Tobias FELDT, Consoler TAPIMENE, Tabea RIEMENSPERGER

Language of the news reported

English

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In this introductory video to the Global Programme Responsible Land Policy answers are given to what it wants to achieve, how it works and why land rights are so important. The Global Programme is commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), co-funded by the European Union and works in Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Laos, Madagascar, Peru (completed in 2021), Uganda and Paraguay (completed in 2018).

 

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In many countries around the world, the land administration system deals only with formal land rights, often subject to legislation passed during the colonial period. Formal or statutory tenure is where a landholder’s rights are specified in the law. This enables the owner(s) or rightholder(s) to rely on the law to defend his or her rights. But the poor often hold their land through customary or informal tenure systems which are often not recognized in law or in practice and therefore they lack the tenure security provided by the law.

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