Resource information
To ensure that there is sustainability at the community level in its land rights and governance training programme, Land Rights Research and Resources Institute (HAKIARDHI), a Tanzanian national level organization that spearheads land rights of small-scale producers, uses land rights monitors (LRMs) in its program areas. In each of the selected villages of the program districts, two LRMs (a man and a woman) who have received land rights training from HAKIARDHI are democratically elected by villagers. The LRMs are given extra training on facilitation skills, human and environmental rights, advocacy and lobbying strategies in order to enable them to continue the work that HAKIARDHI has started in their respective and surrounding villages.
HAKIARDHI is not the only organization in Tanzania that uses selected villagers to sustain its work. Action Aid Tanzania uses community development facilitators (CDF), Mtandao wa Vikundi vya Wakulima Tanzania (MVIWATA) - a network of small-scale farmers’ organizations - uses promoters, and the Legal and Human Rights Centre uses human rights monitors, to mention just a few. Whilst HAKIARDHI cannot therefore claim to be the first to use local monitors, the selection procedures used are uniquely gender sensitive and democratic.
The object of this paper is to highlight the work of LRMs in large-scale plantation investment areas in Tanzania, the challenges they face in their struggle for land rights and some success stories. The paper demonstrates the significance of gender and the different approaches employed by women and men LRMs in their work, and how gender impacts the results of their work. The paper argues that LRMs have played an important role in demanding free, prior and informed consent in land deals with investors. The paper further illustrates the role played by LRMs in promoting equitable and socially responsible investment that respects the rights of local communities.
