General

Under the Evaluation, Research and Communications (ERC) project, USAID launched the Mobile Applications to Secure Tenure (MAST) Pilot in Burkina Faso. MAST uses a simple android app and a semi-crowdsourced methodology to facilitate the mapping and documentation of land in a more efficient, transparent, and affordable manner. USAID has already successfully piloted MAST in Tanzania, where it is now being scaled across an entire district. In Burkina, USAID is working with the Observatoire National du Foncier (which is funded by USAID) and with the Government of Burkina Faso to pilot MAST in four villages within Boudry Commune, close to Ouagadougou. In 2009 the Government of Burkina Faso (GoBF) adopted Law 034-2009 along with related decrees and codes to provide a mechanism to secure customary land rights in rural and peri-urban areas and to deliver land certificates (APFR). To implement the law, however, the GoBF currently relies on ad hoc efforts that are developed and implemented by donor and NGO-led projects to secure land rights across 302 rural communes. This lack of standard approach makes it more difficult to share land information across government agencies and offices, to promote land transparency, and to create a body of knowledge from which research can be generated. In Tanzania, MAST was used to successfully document and record land rights, resulting in the distribution of 3,800 Certificates of Customary Rights to Occupancy (CCROs) to 1,312 households. By piloting MAST in Burkina Faso, USAID seeks to provide a relatively simple and user-friendly technology and implementation methodology that can be used to build awareness of, and respect for, land rights in rural Burkina Faso (including women’s land rights); enhance the capacity of Land Tenure Services (SFR) agents and local governance representatives to map and record land rights information; reduce time and costs associated with delivery of land rights documentation; and improve the exchange of land information among various agencies and stakeholders in Burkina Faso. The overarching objective of the project is to adapt the existing technology to a new context in order to secure rural land rights and improve land governance in Burkina Faso.

General

The REDD Readiness in Brazil project aims to improve institutional capacities of governmental agencies, research institutions and local organizations to efficiently measure, report and monitor green-house gas emission. This will contribute to the implementation of the national strategic plan on climate change mitigation launched by the government of Brazil in 2011. Objectives Increase the capacity of state and municipal governments to reduce GHG emissions from land use and land use change. Increase the adoption of land management best practices on private lands to reduce GHG emissions from land use and land use change. Improve monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) capacity for REDD+, to estimate forest carbon available for market readiness. Outcomes Four municipalities in the State of Para signed the Municipal Pact for Zero Deforestation and completed property-level mapping of forest reserves and land tenure registration. Four municipalities removed from the 50 municipalities on the Environment Ministry’s deforestation watch list. 5,157 private properties in the State of Para and 269 in the State of Mato Grosso were registered in the States’ Environmental Licensing and Monitoring System (SIMLAM). An additional 4 million hectares under control and monitoring by state level environmental agencies.

General

Globally, the impacts of climate change and society’s response are significantly affecting resource tenure governance, the rights of communities and people, and their livelihoods. In turn, resource tenure and property rights issues are widely recognized as crucial in the success of many climate change-related initiatives. Interventions that strengthen resource tenure and property rights governance can help reduce vulnerability; increase the resilience of people and ecosystems in the face of climate impacts; and promote resource use practices that achieve adaptation, mitigation, and development objectives. Using policy engagement, pilot interventions, in-depth case studies, and quantitative and qualitative analysis, the USAID Tenure and Global Climate Change project is advancing knowledge and practice on how land tenure and resource rights relate to global efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Through work in over ten countries, common themes have emerged related to: using mobile applications to secure tenure (MAST); supporting the recognition and documentation of customary rights; using pilot activities to inform national policy discussions in an iterative fashion; and supporting the clarification of government and local resource rights and responsibilities in areas where there are overlapping or ambiguous laws and customs, such as coastal and marine zones, wildlife management areas and forested areas. USAID is supporting communities and households in the Eastern Province of Zambia to document their customary rights to agricultural land and communal resources, as well as supporting climate-smart agriculture (CSA) extension activities. Project work in Zambia is being evaluated through a randomized-control impact evaluation to better understand how tenure activities influence CSA adoption. CSA practices rely on sustained commitment to land stewardship. Yet, for farmers to be willing to invest time and energy into these long-term land management practices, they need tenure security. Additional work across a rural chiefdom is exploring the impacts of tenure security on reducing deforestation and improving wildlife management. The project activities are engaging with civil society, government, and donors to promote the integration of lessons learned from customary land rights documentation into national processes. TGCC is also helping ensure the clarification and respect for rights related to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and incentivizing afforestation/reforestation (REDD+). Guidance and national legal analyses in Guatemala, Honduras, Nepal, and Panama are helping governments, the private sector, and intergovernmental partners clarify who has rights to participate in, and benefit from, forest carbon activities, and how to design successful activities that account for tenure. In Burma, the project is contributing to the development of a National Land Use Policy (NLUP) and its subsequent implementation. TGCC’s support has been central to the ground-breaking multi-stakeholder consultative process that led to adoption of the NLUP, even at a time of historic government transition. To advance lessons for policy implementation, TGCC developed models for documenting and protecting customary and communal rights, and approaches that build constructive relationships between local communities and local government on land management. In particular, the project is addressing the importance of women’s tenure rights, including rights to access, use, and manage forest resources. TGCC is collaborating with private sector actors to support social and environmental goals under Tropical Forest Alliance 2020 commitments. This emerging work with cocoa companies in Ghana, and the beef sector in Paraguay is exploring the deforestation risks related to smallholder and community tenure insecurity in commodity supply chains. In 2017 TGCC will focus on actions that companies can take to mitigate the risks of insecure tenure and deforestation in their supply chains. Finally, building on lessons from USAID’s deep history in land tenure and property rights, TGCC project staff are supporting USAID missions to assess marine resource tenure systems and develop interventions that lead to achievement of biodiversity conservation, climate change adaptation, and resource productivity objectives. The governance of marine resources affects the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people globally. The application of secure tenure and property rights to coastal and marine systems has the potential to strengthen programming and build the resilience of the people and institutions who rely on these resources. Within this coastal ecosystem, mangrove forests hold immense carbon stocks and face unique threats as they often have ambiguous and overlapping governance regimes among communities, government agencies and private sector actors. TGCC is supporting resource tenure analyses of mangrove systems alongside the development of pilot intervention activities in Vietnam. Objectives Pilot land tenure interventions that strengthen land rights as an enabling condition for promoting the adoption of “climate smart” land-use practices Clarify legal and regulatory rights to benefits derived from environmental services under REDD+ and other Payment for Environmental Service (PES) schemes Research and scope studies on tenure, property rights and GCC mitigation and adaptation Strengthen women’s property rights under REDD+ Support national and local organizations engaged in strengthening land tenure and property rights