Author: Amrit Bhandari

According to this New York Times article, one police officer was killed and dozens of people were injured on February 26 when villagers protesting land seizures clashed with security forces in Maubin, Burma. The protesters claim they were never compensated when their land was confiscated and sold to a wealthy businessman 17 years ago. According to Lt. Col. Tot Shwe of the police, “it is an old problem, but now it has exploded.”

Recent positive political reforms have granted Burmese citizens, journalists, and civil society organizations greater freedom to debate contentious issues – including land tenure and resources rights – and this protest is the latest event to highlight the visible tensions over the rights to land and natural resources in the country. In November, protests over the expansion of a copper mine turned violent and, according to the BBC, “between 20 and 30 protestors, many of them Buddhist monks, were injured, some with severe burns after the camps were set alight”.

Addressing these issues is essential for reducing conflict and promoting peace and economic growth in Burma. As we noted in a previous commentary about the tensions between various stakeholders over land, mineral, and other resource rights as the country undergoes significant political reforms, the USAID Land Tenure and Property Rights Division is preparing to undertake an assessment with the intent of helping the Government of Burma assess tenure and property rights challenges and identify potential opportunities for addressing them.

On February 22, the South Sudan Council of Ministers passed the USAID-assisted draft Land Policy with minimal amendments. The Land Policy will now head to the National Legislative Assembly for review. While much work remains to be done, this event marks a notable step on South Sudan’s path toward developing institutions and policies for effective land governance.

As a newly independent country facing continuing conflict over land and resources, developing a clear, efficient and equitable land policy framework that will reduce conflict and promote peace and economic growth is critical for South Sudan. Lack of clarity and legal protections for land use has affected investment, economic development, and conservation efforts in the country. It has also contributed to local conflict, including disputes over large-scale land acquisitions and grazing rights.

Since 2008, USAID has assisted the Government of South Sudan to develop a draft land policy. USAID’s Sudan Property Rights Program conducted extensive public consultation and research to inform the development of a draft land policy, as well as provided support to build the capacity of the Southern Sudan Land Commission. The draft land policy provides guidance for legislation impacting land tenure – specifically through public, community and private land tenure systems – with the aim of improving the security of citizens’ rights to land under South Sudanese law. The policy serves as a framework to amend existing laws and provides guidance for drafting future legislation. On February 18, 2011, the Sudan Property Rights Program formally handed over the final draft of the Land Policy to the Southern Sudan Land Commission.

While the Sudan Property Rights Program ended in 2011, a follow-on project, the Sudan Rural Land and Governance Project, is currently helping build capacity for land governance institutions that promote property rights, mitigate conflict, and improve tenure security.

Artisanal mining – a livelihood for an estimated 20 million people around the world – has historically not been an area where USAID and other donors have invested substantial resources. While a wide range of artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) practices occur throughout the world, the exploration, extraction and trade of diamonds have become increasingly viewed as controversial due to purported links with rebel movements, environmental destruction, and child labor.

USAID’s Property Rights and Artisanal Diamond Development (PRADD) project in the Central African Republic, although coming to a conclusion under the Property Rights and Resource Governance (PRRG) Task Order after more than five years of implementation, has changed this perception in many ways. The PRADD program began as a pilot in 2007 in the Central African Republic pioneering a property rights approach to better monitoring of the artisanal diamond mining sector and improving livelihoods in ASM communities. The results from this approach and the overall impacts of the project have been altogether positive as illustrated in the final quarterly report now available.

Over the past three years, legal diamond production in PRADD’s longstanding areas of intervention has increased 450% compared to 21% for the rest of the country. During the same time frame, more than 650 mining sites have been rehabilitated and converted to other economic uses resulting in increased incomes and food security. Although the current project is coming to an end, many of the innovative and integrative approaches utilized under PRADD will be continued and expanded under an upcoming successor program creatively titled PRADD II.

Landesa, a USAID partner in addressing land tenure issues, was recently acknowledged by The Global Journal as one of the top 100 NGOs in the world. Landesa climbed to 16 in this year’s rankings, up from 34 last year. The rankings are based on three criteria: innovation, impact, and sustainability.

In its rankings issue, The Global Journal wrote “An outlier amongst the NGOs making up this ranking, the Seattle-based Landesa works to secure land rights for the world’s poorest people – those 2.47 billion chiefly rural individuals who live on less than two dollars a day. Of this group, more than a billion lack legal rights over the land they use to survive, causing entrenched poverty cycles to persist over generations.”

The Global Journal also noted that “Landesa works with governments and other local organizations to create tailored approaches to expanding land rights to the rural poor.” One such approach is USAID’s Kenya Justice project, which is implemented by Landesa. The Kenya Justice project works with local customary justice systems to raise communities’ legal awareness and strengthen women’s land rights. Some of the project’s achievements – including increasing the number of girls enrolled in secondary school and elevating women to positions of authority within key customary decision-making bodies – have gained increased media attention recently.

Dr. Gregory Myers, USAID Division Chief, Land Tenure and Property Rights notes “we are proud to partner with Landesa on this critical issue that impacts so many of the poorest people we are attempting to help. More important, Landesa’s work promotes our combined objectives to promote greater food security (particularly for women), increased economic return, and better natural resource management.”

USAID’s Kenya Justice project – which is implemented by Landesa and works with local communities to raise legal awareness and improve women’s ability to exercise their rights – continues to gain media attention. Last week, two NGOs featured blogs on the Justice project: Landesa Helps Bring About Women’s Rights in Rural Kenya by the ONE campaign and Women’s Property Rights Success in Rural Kenya by the Borgen Project.

Both articles highlighted some of the project’s recent successes in working with customary legal systems to enhance women’s rights such as: requiring a spouse’s written consent before approving property-related transactions; providing women the ability to keep a portion of their land in cases of separation or divorce; and most notably, increasing the number of girls enrolled in secondary school. As we noted in an earlier commentary about preventing child marriage, strengthening women’s land rights empowers them economically. Enabling women to exercise greater control over the income generated from land allows them to earmark resources for education, including school fees for girls.

The One campaign’s blog noted that “gender equality has the potential to end the cycle of poverty by enabling women to contribute to community decisions and govern family resources and money wisely. We here at ONE are excited about the potential for this program to inspire others like it across the African continent and are looking forward to watching communities change and grow as women gain greater rights and freedoms.”

Dr. Gregory Myers, USAID Division Chief, Land Tenure and Property Rights argues that the next steps to make these changes for women’s property rights in Kenya concrete and actionable is to formalize these changes in law and policy.

Near the end of January, Liberian President and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf called attention to “the need for major reform of our land and natural resource governance systems” in her annual message to the national legislature. While acknowledging some recent challenges, President Sirleaf stated that the Liberia Government “has taken significant steps, principally through the creation of the Land Commission which is tasked with developing policies, legislation and regulations that ensure equal access to productive land for all Liberians; ensure security of tenure and the rule of law with regard to all land transactions; facilitate the development and implementation of institutional framework, the use and management of land, and promote investment in land and land resources.”

President Sirleaf also announced the formation of a special Women’s Land Rights Task Force, which will assist the Land Commission to develop a structure for gender-equitable land policies. These reform efforts are supported by USAID’s Land Policy and Institutional Support (LPIS) project, which recently held a two-day workshop to help launch the Women’s Land Rights Task Force.

In addition to the LPIS project, USAID has supported the Government of Liberia’s efforts to improve resource governance through the recently-completed Property Rights and Artisanal Diamond Development (PRADD) project. The PRADD project worked closely with the Government of Liberia and artisanal mining communities to clarify and formalize rights to land and natural resources in order to reduce conflict, promote economic growth, and create incentives for good stewardship of the land.

The project’s recent impact evaluation report noted that “miners having sold significantly more of their diamonds through local licensed brokers than did miners responding to the baseline survey.” Increasing the number of diamonds flowing through formal chains of custody is an important achievement for the PRADD project, which supported Liberia’s efforts to comply with the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme – an international initiative which attempts to prevent the trafficking of conflict diamonds.

This video from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) profiles a project relating to secure access to land and resource rights in Mozambique. The 19 minute film is narrated mostly in Portuguese with English subtitles.

The documentary focuses on efforts to empower members of rural communities to better understand and exercise their property rights, and promote more gender equitable land and resource governance systems. The project has provided legal training on land matters to over 400 paralegals, who play an important role in informing community members – especially women and other vulnerable populations – about their legal rights and assisting in conflict resolution. According to the project’s Chief Technical Advisor, Marianna Bicchieri, FAO’s project “seeks to promote legal education at a community level so that women can exercise and ensure their rights to land and natural resources, especially in the context of the AIDS pandemic.”

Mozambique is a mostly rural country; many residents are either unaware of their land rights or lack the means to assert those rights effectively. While formal law permits women to independently register land and jointly own marital assets, the reality is that few women have assets in their names. Women who lack secure property rights and who depend primarily on relationships with men for access to land and other natural resources are extremely vulnerable.

In addition to FAO, the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) is also working to establish more efficient and secure access to land and resources in Mozambique. MCC’s Land Tenure Services Project seeks to improve the country’s land policy framework, build institutional capacity in land-related services, and improve access to land by increasing education and awareness of land rights.

Mozambique also announced a cooperation framework to support the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition in September 2012. The New Alliance is “a commitment by G8 members, African countries, and private sector partners to achieve sustained and inclusive agricultural growth to lift 50 million people out of poverty over the next 10 years.”

Click here for more information from USAID on Mozambique.

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.”

In addition to calling on countries to consider adopting the VGs, the resolution also “requests the relevant entities of the United Nations system, in accordance with their respective mandates and in the most cost-effective manner, to ensure the speedy dissemination and promotion of the Guidelines”.

The Voluntary Guidelines were adopted in May 2012 by the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS) and are an international soft law instrument that outlines principles and practices governments can refer to when making laws and administering land, fisheries and forests rights. The VGs are intended to create a better environment for investments in agriculture, reduce land-related conflicts, recognize the rights of women, promote improved natural resource management and address challenges related to global climate change.

Click here for more information from USAID on the VGs.

A recent article from IRIN news discusses land and conflict, as well as some potential opportunities for land reform, in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). According to the article, “land disputes are key drivers of conflict in eastern DRC, and they hinder development across the region. Some researchers argue that agrarian conflict, rooted in issues of land rights and citizenship, is the principle cause of the Kivu region’s wars.”

International donor agencies have begun working to address land issues in DRC, focusing primarily on mediating land disputes and registering land claims, but progress has been slow. According to the article, mediation projects lack coherence, coordination and sustainability, while assisting the registration of land claims has had limited results.

The DRC, which is faced by weak resource governance, conflict, instability, corruption, and poverty, could benefit greatly from a revised legal framework for land. Increasingly, the DRC government appears willing to address land issues – the article notes that the DRC government and UN Habitat recently worked out a ‘road map’ for reform of the land law and land governance.

This is a case where international donors, government and civil society organizations should consider the Voluntary Guidelines (VGs) for the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries, and Forests in the Context of National Food Security as a means to address land and resource rights. The VGs – which were adopted in May 2012 by the UN Committee on World Food Security – establish principles to guide countries in designing and implementing laws that govern property rights over land, fisheries and forests for agricultural and other uses. The VGs create a favorable architecture for policy reform that can address conflict, gender, access and rights. The VGs could also help to address the overall problem of coordination of reform efforts.

Click here for more information on the VGs.