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Community Organizations Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation
Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation
Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation
Acronym
Norad
Governmental institution

Location

Working languages
English
Norwegian

The Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) is a directorate under the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA).


Norad's strategy towards 2010 states that Norad:


  • aims to be the centre of expertise for evaluation, quality assurance and dissemination of the results of Norwegian development cooperation, jointly with partners in Norway, developing countries and the international community
  • will ensure that the goals of Norway's development policy are achieved by providing advice and support to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Norwegian foreign service missions
  • will administer the agency's grant schemes so that development assistance provided through Norwegian and international partners contributes effectively to poverty reduction

These goals will be achieved on the foundation of Norad's current competencies, through highly qualified staff, a flexible and practical organisation, good administrative support functions and a working environment characterised by transparency, respect, equality, responsibility and quality.

Members:

Resources

Displaying 31 - 35 of 44

Leadership and capacity development program (MESOLIDER School)

General

This project supports the first implementation year of MESOLIDER, a leadership school for indigenous leaders, developed by organizations of the Mesoamerican Alliance of People and Forests from Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama. Activities include capacity-building programs, workshops, regional exchanges in Central America, a systematization of lessons learned and outreach/community activities at local, national, regional and international level.

Green Livelihoods Alliance 2 Indonesia

General

Indonesia’s state forest land (Kawasan Hutan) covers about 63.7 percent of Indonesia's land area. These forests are extensively and intensively developed by industrial oil palm and timber/pulp plantations, extractive industries and infrastructure. Such expansion has been destroying forests, including their biodiversity, and many times led to the confiscation of lands from the indigenous or local communities. Consent and dialogue between companies and indigenous communities are greatly rigged as the communities are often forced to let go of their lands. As the issue persists, the government leaves big gaps in supporting and assisting IPLCs to fulfil their rights, especially tenurial and territorial rights. For customary area/lands (Wilayah Adat), out of 40M ha indicative ancestral domain, only 1.5M ha have been recognised formally. Within state forest areas, of 900,000 ha indicative customary forest (CF) areas, only 35,000 ha have been granted with rights. Villages at the lowest administrative entity are posed with unclear boundaries, with only 34% of 72,000 villages having legal boundaries. As a result, IPLCs in Indonesia are left with very limited capacities to conduct their livelihoods, let alone effectively and sustainably manage their forests and other natural resources; while at the same time, the large scale actors and corporations continue to compromise environmental sustainability and human rights without sanctions from the authorities. To make matters worse, groups or individuals, including community leaders, who have engaged in activities to defend the rights of indigenous people and their territories, face criminalization, intimidation, forced arrest or even attacks that may cause their deaths. Four landscapes on Indonesia’s three largest islands have been selected as GLA intervention areas: Mudiak Baduo (720,000 ha, with 900,000 inhabitants ) on Sumatra, Ketapang-Kayong Utara (K-KU) (3,560,000 ha; 590,000 inhabitants ) and Kayan (3,699,371 ha, 40,000 inhabitants) on Kalimantan, and Lariang (900,000 ha; 496,000 inhabitants ) on Sulawesi. The landscapes represent four forested areas with ongoing development involving large scale agrocommodities, mainly oil palm, and extractive industries of coal and bauxite mining. Even though they share common features, these landscapes represent a variety of cultures and socio-economic conditions, each influencing how issues between the IPLCs and the drivers of deforestation in the areas are connected. Parallel to that, the programme substantially focuses on the national level, where decision making is concentrated, and where GLA operates in coalition with different organisations and movements to capitalise the programme and upscale towards wider impacts.

Objectives

The Green Livelihood Alliance in Indonesia aims to support IPLCs in the four landscapes to obtain sovereign control over their lands and natural resources, and conduct ecologically and socially responsible livelihoods. The programme lobbies and campaigns for the government to halt new licenses in forest and peatlands, and for the private sector operating in the four landscapes to rightfully implement environmental and social standards and respect labour and human rights. At the same time, GLA aims for the financial sector to apply sustainable financial principles and standards to their investments in agrocommodity and extractive industries. Finally, GLA supports (W)EHRDs in Indonesia to freely express their opinions, safely participate in public affairs, and lobbies for their rightful protection by the law.

Oil palm, livestock and cocoa: An integrated landscape management approach.

General

In the South Caribbean Coastal Autonomous Region of Nicaragua, we have convened 49 producers, private companies, civil society organisations, and government agencies in the Paisajes Sostenibles (PaSos) platform to work towards sustainable landscape management, so as to enhance the fragile RACCS ecosystem. The palm oil companies that participated in the PaSos platform jointly identified High Conservation Value Areas (HCVAs) and developed action plans to protect these HCVAs in a cost effective manner. Incentives were developed to support the process towards jurisdictional RSPO certification. By the end of 2020, as a result of the RSPO National Interpretation process, the regional government, as well as the companies involved have shown interest in certifying the entire RACCS under the jurisdictional certification scheme of RSPO. In addition, the national government has shown interest in reviewing and adjusting the Nicaraguan Compulsory Technical Standard of Sustainable Palm Oil (NTON). We also worked with two companies to develop and implement a smallholder-inclusive business model. This model offers a mechanism through which smallholders receive a better price, while it reduces the chances of potential land conflicts between smallholders and companies, and supports smallholders’ livelihood diversification. In addition, we co-initiated the “Livestock Zero Deforestation” platform through which, together with private sector actors and CSOs, we aim to work towards a “deforestation-free label” for dairy and beef, and promote the diversification of livestock farms with cocoa and agroforestry.

IDH Landscapes Program

General

 The Landscape Finance team works with impact investment funds focusing on sustainable land management to enable their capital to be invested in high social and environmental impact projects that are meeting risk and (financial and impact) return requirements. In parallel – and building on the knowledge gained by working with these funds – the Landscape Finance team also works with IDH landscapes teams on the ground to identify and develop investable opportunities with positive impact on the landscape, without being tied to a specific investment fund.

Sustainable Landscape Program in the Paraguayan Chaco

General

In the Irala Fernandez District, in the dry Chaco region of Paraguay, we have been working together with the municipality, the Ministry of Agriculture, a national research institute, the three major dairy cooperatives, and three indigenous communities to improve production of food crops, enhance land management through silvopastoral grazing schemes, and increase the communities’ climate resilience. The latter is important to deal with prolonged periods of droughts as well as severe flooding, increasingly common in this region. The establishment of a MSP was key to this end, in order to bring actors together, define priorities and identify corresponding action plans. Through the MSP we engaged vulnerable groups, which had the opportunity to make their needs heard and we supported them to prioritize actionable plans. Through this process we have learned that building trust takes a long time and stakeholders need to be involved in every step of the way, from the planning to the execution of the solution, because this gives them a sense of belonging and creates an environment of shared development. At the start of the programme the Mennonite cooperatives and the Paraguayan cooperatives were not on speaking terms, and also the leadership of indigenous communities were reluctant to join the MSP. By investing in a preparatory stage of bilateral meetings with stakeholders, Solidaridad could understand their respective challenges and gain credibility as a trusted partner. In addition, to overcome the hesitation of stakeholders at the start, continuous efforts were made to ensure all actors remained on board. For the indigenous communities, this platform offered the opportunity to co-design and implement solutions to address their main needs, opened a communication channel with the local authorities and successfully engaged with local business. As a result of the joint work, sesame production was introduced as a viable option for income generation in these communities. School orchards were introduced to tackle food insecurity, and water reservoirs were built to collect rain water and facilitate the access during drought periods. The dairy production system in the region was also transformed by the introduction of Climate Smart Practices linked to a Technical Assistance Scheme, reaching 430 producers in 12,900 hectares. Productivity levels increased, the quality of milk improved and dairy producers have become more resilient to the extreme weather events, typical of this region. A major result of the project was that producers have gained better access to credit from the Crédito Agrícola de Habilitación CAH (agricultural finance provider), because we supported CAH to close the information gap and helped them to introduce improved (business) data management systems that is used to de-risk loans. The CAH disbursed around €200,000 in soft loans, thanks to which producers were able to buy new livestock, hay, and invest in silage, water reservoirs, and resizing of paddocks. The work with the CAH triggered the interest of other financial institutions that were initially reluctant to invest in small producers because they were perceived to be of high risk. Solidaridad helped to close the information gap, effectively connecting producers with finance. We see clear signals of scaling up after the project's end: the State government is assisting other dairy producers and indigenous communities. 377 dairy producers in the region have started to replicate the better dairy production practices via their cooperatives, inspired by the positive outcomes from the pilot farms.