Post Type: Blog

How a land surveyor in Meta’s Regional Land Office has overcome challenges to find herself in a career dominated by men.

Leany Alba, 28, grew up in Bogota and dreamed of being a professional photographer, but her parents never warmed up to the idea. She always loves maps and followed a career path towards becoming a cartographer. On that path, she found a burgeoning job market for her current profession: land surveyor.

For years, geographers, cartographers, and topographers were considered occupations for “strong, young men.” Alba bucked the trend when she took her first job with Colombia’s Land Restitution Unit as a topographer, surveying properties that were being returned to displaced families in Meta. Though her parents had once worried about their daughter, imagining her measuring buildings on urban construction sites, they supported her decision to work in rural Colombia.

“These jobs were once dominated by men, because it was much more physical. But this is nonsense. A woman can endure the high temperatures and carry equipment just like a man,” says Leany.

 

 

 

 

 

Leany Alba works in some of Meta´s most isolated municipalities, in partnership with the regional and municipal governments, surveying urban properties to make land rights a reality for thousands of Colombians.

In 2022, she accepted a job with the Meta Regional Land Office, as the only woman topographer on a team of land formalization experts who regularly travel to rural municipalities to assist small-town mayors with the titling of urban parcels.

“With today’s technology, there is no excuse. Any woman can work as a land surveyor.” says Leanny.

Meta’s Regional Land Office supports municipalities like Mesetas, La Uribe and La Macarena, focusing on titling properties in the towns’ urban areas. Underfunded municipalities like Mesetas cannot afford to maintain its own land office, so the regional strategy allows it to share the costs of land titling, like labor and equipment, with a group of municipalities.

The innovative concept was first supported by USAID in the Department of Meta, and has found success in other departments like Cauca, Sucre, and Bolívar. The regional land office strategy has planted seeds for regional-level leadership in land administration and created a conduit of support for secure land rights.

“So one of the challenges is communication with people. Women often have better communications skills, and it is necessary to have a certain tact in dealing with rural people, since almost nobody understands land” explains Leany Alba.

In a little over a year, Meta’s Regional Land Office has delivered nearly 700 urban land titles, which include 34 public properties with schools, health clinics, and municipal services like parks and recreation. The Regional Land Office has titled properties in Mesetas, La Macarena, Uribe, Vista Hermosa, San Juan de Arama, and Puerto Rico.

Cross-posted from USAID Exposure

Before becoming a community agronomist, Anamika Ghosh had never stepped foot on a farm. Like most women in her community, her family was involved in farming, but her role was confined to cutting and preparing seed potatoes at home. “I had no knowledge about farming,” she said. “I supported my husband but was not a farmer myself.” 

Anamika’s story is typical of many women. Although women make up over 50 percent of the agricultural labor force in many countries, their roles tend to be overlooked, undervalued, and underpaid. Land ownership is often required to participate in contract farming, and as women continue to face barriers to owning land, they remain underrepresented in global food and agricultural value chains. 

Closing the gender gap in agriculture could increase global GDP by US 1 trillion and reduce global food security for 45 million people. The private sector is a key partner in this effort, as more companies realize that investing in women’s empowerment has direct impacts on their bottom line, increasing productivity, expanding the supply base, meeting international standards, and enhancing company reputation. 

Under the Integrated Land and Resource Governance (ILRG) program, USAID worked with private sector partners to empower women and expand their access to agricultural supply chains. In India, USAID and PepsiCo partnered to empower women in PepsiCo’s potato supply chain by increasing their access to critical productive resources like land and agronomy knowledge. Over 1,800 women received agronomy and sustainable farming practices training for the first time and over 800 farmers (65 percent women) received land literacy training. In Ghana, USAID partnered with Ecom Agroindustrial Corp. (ECOM), a global commodity trading and processing company, to increase gender-responsiveness in ECOM’s internal policies and practices and to pilot targeted women’s empowerment activities in cocoa communities. ECOM reached over 2,600 farmers (55 percent women) to engage in dialogues about harmful gender norms around control of productive resources and gender-based violence. To increase women’s economic security, the company supported alternative livelihoods for women in 37 communities. 

WOMEN GAINED CONFIDENCE AND DECISION-MAKING POWER

Both partnerships achieved notable results in women’s empowerment and in the companies’ tangible and intangible business metrics. In both countries, women began to be recognized as farmers rather than “farmers’ wives” – a shift that opens the door to new opportunities. In India, access to agronomy knowledge increased women’s confidence, leading to improved social mobility, financial autonomy, and greater say in household decisions over the use of land and income. In Ghana, men and women farmers started to change their beliefs and behaviors around gender roles and responsibilities, with men recognizing the importance of women owning land and equitable sharing of household tasks and household decision-making. According to cocoa farmer Emmanuel Oboery, rethinking the division of labor in his household led to more collaboration and increased productivity, “Before, with only me working in the farm, I would make two or three bags per season.  Now working together we can make five or six bags. Before me and my wife were each on their own separate path, but we are one now.”

WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT IS GOOD FOR BUSINESS

Once women had improved access to productive resources and harmful gender norms started to shift, there were improvements in company productivity, supply base retention, and brand image and loyalty. In India, families of women who received agronomy training had better gross and net yields – 84 percent of women farmers trained reported an increase in their farm yield compared to the previous year and 76 percent reported a decrease in rejection rates. PepsiCo and ECOM staff reported that women in project communities are joining the supply chain at a higher rate than men, supporting greater stability and growth of the supply base. Farmer loyalty is closely linked to better company reputation. As farmers see companies making intentional efforts to engage women farmers and the benefits that come with it, they feel more inclined to start or continue to work with the company.

THE PATH FORWARD

Private sector engagement can provide opportunities for greater sustainability and scalability of USAID investments. The USAID-PepsiCo pilot spurred a larger five-year Global Development Alliance across five countries to empower women in different supply chains. This will help PepsiCo meet its commitment to improve the livelihoods of 250,000 people in its supply chain by 2030. PepsiCo staff are now leading training with women farmers in new communities across West Bengal, using gender-responsive tools and materials developed under the partnership. In Ghana, ECOM has developed a five year gender strategy, which includes gender equality metrics the company will report against internally at the country level, and recruited dedicated staff to implement it and continue to roll out gender norms training to farmers in new communities and regions. 

These partnerships demonstrate that investing in women is not only critical for USAID’s development goals related to food security, economic growth, and resilience, but it is also good for business. Anamika, the once shy woman who thought that cutting potato seeds was not important, now feels confident to lead the family farming business and train other women. “Now I know I am a farmer. I have technical knowledge and I am encouraging others in my community.” When they can access the productive resources needed to thrive, women farmers like Anamika have the potential to transform global food security and supply chains, feeding their families, their communities, and the world.

USAID is promoting women and young coffee growers in northern Cauca, raising the quality of their coffee and opening doors in global markets. 

“We as coffee growers work for the common good. More than coffee, it is us, a part of the countryside who are taking care of the environment,” says Fanllany Méndez, spokeswoman for the coffee growers association Asoprodig, located in Santander de Quilichao in the heart of Cauca, one of Colombia’s most productive coffee growing regions.

Women from Cauca like Fanllany Méndez have always seen coffee as their best option to help their families and get ahead. At 31 years of age, Fanllany is a community leader who encourages other women in Asoprodig to plant coffee, improve their skills, and promote marketing.

“Thanks to coffee I was able to study, and thanks to it I will also be able to give my children an education.” says Fanllany Méndez, a coffee grower from Cauca.

The hard work paid off this year when Asoprodig was chosen to participate in the 12th version of the Specialty Coffee Fair and Competition of Cauca. In the event, 10 small coffee grower associations participated for the first time, allowing international buyers to try their specialty coffees.

Winning New Markets

USAID is giving indigenous Pijao communities in Chaparral, Tolima the opportunity to participate in land administration initiatives.

Eleven ethnic Pijao communities in the municipality of Chaparral, Tolima, took part in Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) sessions and agreed to participate in the implementation of Rural Property and Land Administration Plan (POSPR) being carried out by USAID Land for Prosperity with support from the Colombian government.

The FPIC process is a preliminary step to ensure that the indigenous groups, which represent an estimated 2,500 people, understand the process of surveying land, formalizing property, and resolving a variety of land conflicts in the municipality. Among these objectives, the POSPR gives indigenous groups the chance to meaningfully participate in the process. This includes the opportunity to create or increase coverage of their collective territories, known in Spanish as resguardos.

Each of the 11 Pijao communities varies in terms of their relationship with collective lands and the status as indigenous group. Some communities, such as Matora de Maito, consist of dozens of families living dispersed throughout the mountainous municipality, with no sizable collective landholdings. Some of the Pijao communities have yet to achieve official designation by Colombia’s Ministry of Interior, while others live on resguardos that overlap with the Las Hermosas National Park high in the Andes.

“This is a great opportunity for indigenous communities to advance the process of establishing collective landholdings, strengthen our family bonds, and ensure the persistence of the Pijao culture,” says Maria Ximena Figueroa, Pijao social leader from the Matora de Maito Pijao community.

In Colombia, FPIC is a right that indigenous and Afro-descendant communities have to say yes or no to any proposal that could affect their territory or social structure. The FPIC process supported by USAID is inclusive and participatory and demonstrates an intercultural dialogue around land and territory.

During the FPIC process, Land for Prosperity (LFP) staff held events on Saturdays and Sundays to increase participation and invited all members of the communities. LFP presented the POSPR process, and how it affects private landowners and indigenous communities. It also opened up dialogue with members, allowing the community to ask questions about the intention of the local and national government agencies.

“There is confusion in the community around land formalization, ranging from ideas that the government is coming to take our land to ideas that the government is finally making reparations,” says Luis Fernando Guerrero, the current governor of Matora de Maito.

At the end of each session, the communities vote, and if they agree, sign a protocol with LFP and delegate a spokesperson, or in some cases, a guía ancestral (ancestral guide) for the entire process. Implementation of POSPR in Chaparral is expected to take place over the next 18 months. During the process, teams of legal, land, and social experts will continue meeting with Pijao leaders and community members to survey their collective lands and present requests to the National Land Agency.

Identifying Land Use

In 2010, Matora de Maito purchased a three-hectare parcel to build their maloca, or community meeting center, near the urban center of Chaparral. “The problem is that we still don’t own a larger piece of collective land where we can work together and use the land the way we always have,” explains the group’s governor, Luis Fernando Guerrero.

The implementation of POSPR is a strong departure from purely titling land parcels. The exercise has multiple objectives and allows the government to collect information on types of properties, land usage, and the number of landless farmers for agrarian reform, i.e. the redistribution of land. For indigenous communities, the POSPR can be useful to identify lands for ethnic territories.

“We expect this process to help the Colombian Government understand how much land there is and which land can be used for cultivation and which lands we need to protect with conservation initiatives, like forests and water,” says Pijao social leader Maria Ximena Figueroa Olaya.

“We all want a collective territory where we can record our own history and leave a legacy for our children. Our communities need assistance with the application for a resguardo.” says José Walter Cano, Governor of the Pijaos en Evolución, a group of 26 Pijao families.

“Being Pijao is what unites us. We are united, and we fight for our rights in a pacific manner and not through violence. We are just asking for the opportunity to return to our land to grow our crops and our medicinal plants. These are the things that hold up our communities.” says Maria Luisa Rayo, Governor of the Cañón de Amoyá Pijao community.

Cross-posted from USAID Exposure

El Bagre’s Municipal Land Office has delivered more than 500 urban land titles in one of Colombia’s largest gold mining municipalities. 

El Bagre is synonymous with gold mining. In fact, before El Bagre was a municipality, it formed part of neighboring Zaragoza and was a place where people had been mining gold for hundreds of years. For the last several decades, Colombian mining firm Mineros has carried out alluvial mining across large swathes of the gold-rich land. According to experts, El Bagre is one of Antioquia’s highest gold producing municipalities and depends on gold for 80-90% of its revenue.

Due to an abundance of gold and a general lack of state services in the tumultuous sub-region of Bajo Cauca, El Bagre’s residents have weathered years of violence and conflict between guerrilla and paramilitary groups in disputes over land, power, money, and narcotics.

The opportunity to benefit from gold mining has only exacerbated land issues in El Bagre, making land tenure security even more important for residents. Land for Prosperity began supporting El Bagre’s municipal government in 2021 with the creation of the Municipal Land Office (MLO). This office includes a legal expert, land surveyor, social worker, and secretary and is focused on working out land and property issues facing El Bagre’s urban areas, which comprise an estimated 13,000 urban parcels.

In May, El Bagre’s Land Office delivered 90 property titles to residents, bringing the total number of land titles delivered to more than 500 since the office was created.

“Finally, I can say this house is mine. I lived with uncertainty because I didn’t have the deed,” said Nancy Preciado, a neighbor in the urban area of Puerto Claver. Preciado never pursued a land title before now due to the high costs and time associated with lawyers and the land formalization process.

“Thanks to the Land Office, I am smiling ear to ear.” says Nancy Preciado, an El Bagre neighbor.

Optimizing Land Governance

As the Municipal Land Office continues towards its goal of 1,000 titled urban parcels by the end of 2023, the team’s legal expert Daniela Gomez and team face additional challenges related to community outreach and convincing residents that the services provided by the office are authentic.

“Nobody believed the Municipal Land Office would help them with land titling services for free. But once we delivered more than 150 land titles at our first event in 2021, people gained confidence in what the administration is trying to do,” Gomez says.

LFP is currently supporting the MLO with two additional employees, a legal expert and a land surveyor. As part of their outreach strategy, the MLO team leads land formalization workshops in the two main urban zones outside of El Bagre’s main city center: Puerto Claver and Puerto Lopez.

“We teach the importance of legal land ownership, that a registered title provides legal security, legally accredits them as owners of the house, provides a secure future for their children, and can help them improve their housing. We also reiterate that the process of titling their property is 100 percent free of charge.”

A Step Forward

El Bagre’s Municipal Land Office is also facilitating housing subsidies for new homeowners with a registered land title who qualify for the program. In 2023, the MLO helped 66 homeowners access government subsidies offered by Antioquia’s departmental government, permitting low-income residents to improve their flooring, bathrooms, and kitchen.

“The Municipal Land Office has made many types of services available that were never available before. Together with residents, we are reducing informality and contributing to the quality of life of the population,” explains Gomez.

 

Cross-posted from USAID Exposure

At Kenya’s Ministry of Agriculture, Head of Food Crops Statistics Ms. Jane Kioko takes on the enormous task of compiling monthly crop data for the country. Small-scale farmers make up 75% of the nation’s agricultural output. As our climate changes, these farmers navigate more extreme challenges, like droughts and crop diseases. Through a collaboration between USAID and NASA, decision-makers like Kioko can use the birds-eye view of satellite tools to expand their understanding of the challenges that farmers are facing.

Kioko and her colleagues are connected to farmers through a broad network of county agricultural extension officers. These officers meet with farmers directly to provide resources and technical information, and report on farm conditions to inform national decision-making. 

This approach to gathering information can be time-consuming. Often, less than a third of the needed data made it back to Ministry staff like Kioko. To know when to distribute support, such as insurance payouts after a drought, Kioko needs to access highly localized data, like rainfall and field-level crop yield estimates. 

Enter Dr. Catherine Nakalembe, an Applied Sciences Team Principal Investigator for SERVIR. Nakalembe is an award-winning Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland and the Africa Director for NASA Harvest. Since 2016, Nakalembe has collaborated with Ministry staff in using satellite data to predict areas at risk for food shortages.

SERVIR is a collaboration of NASA and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), partnering with organizations around the world to support locally led climate efforts with Earth data.

With SERVIR, Nakalembe helps to create country-specific versions of the regional Crop Monitors tool established through the Group on Earth Observation’s Global Agricultural Monitoring Initiative (GEOGLAM). Crop Monitors uses satellite data to capture a more expansive view of agricultural conditions. Nakalembe partners with agricultural ministries to combine satellite data with on-the-ground information to paint a clearer picture of where food security support is needed. Regional demand for improved crop monitoring is so high that the project now spans six countries: Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia.

Nakalembe understands that to make these tools as useful as possible, they must be integrated into existing decision-making. Each country already has processes to gather and report on field conditions. Rather than adopt a new workflow, Nakalembe works with users to conveniently integrate the Crop Monitors tool into their own systems.

For example, Nakalembe and Kioko ensure that extension officers are actively involved in implementing the tools. Officers are trained to upload monthly field data to Crop Monitors, which Kioko can quickly assess to identify areas for intervention. Extension officers regularly share updates with Kioko which help to improve Ministry decision-making and refine Nakalembe’s work.

“There’s nothing better than getting a text message that says ‘When do you come back? When do we go collect data again?” Nakalembe shared.

Ms Kioko referenced a 2022 outbreak of African armyworm when the Ministry used Crop Monitors reports to deploy resources like pesticides to avoid crop losses across approximately 2,100 km2.

“You’re much more confident with more sources of information than if only relying on one source of information…especially when it comes to pest infestation in the field, the officers are able to report through the Crop Monitor and [farmers] are able to get timely assistance from the government, which is critical,” Kioko said.

As droughts become more frequent, farmers are seeing the importance of crop insurance. In 2016, only 900 farmers opted into the national agricultural insurance program. By 2021, that number soared to nearly 300,000.

Nakalembe’s work continues to expand. SERVIR’s West Africa hub is integrating the tool in Senegal, and national Crop Monitors are being used to create Regional Food Balance Sheets, which help multinational decision-makers avoid food shortages. With the help of satellite data, USAID and NASA are amplifying the existing efforts of food security champions like Jane Kioko and her team.

Q&A with María José Muñoz, Land Formalization Expert from Colombia’s Property Registry (SNR)

Since 2016, Colombia’s property registry authority, the Superintendence of Notaries and Registers (SNR) has worked with Municipal Land Offices (MLOs) to register and deliver thousands of land titles to owners all over the country. In this interview with María José Muñoz, Delegated Superintendent for the Protection, Restitution and Formalization of Land of the SNR, she talks about the importance of promoting land titling, how MLOs facilitate coordination with state entities and USAID’s role to support the process.

 

What does a Delegated Superintendent do and how do you coordinate work with Municipal Land Offices?

The Delegated Superintendent for the Protection, Restitution, and Formalization focuses on strengthening and supporting territorial entities with property and land formalization processes in the urban areas of a municipality. We are distributed across five regions where the SNR is providing legal and technical support to territorial entities with the administrative act of user ownership. As a delegate, what I do is coordinate work between the territorial entities and SNR’s regional property registry offices around the registration of an administrative act, which is how an urban property is delivered to the citizens of a municipality.

What objectives and challenges do you have in the SNR?

The main objective is to have more Colombian landowners every day, and this is achieved through the support of territorial entities or territorial authorities that have signed agreements with us. This has been a challenge, which is why we try to impact more territorial entities, more municipal and departmental administrations, so that they can sign agreements with us and we can support them in that objective of making more Colombians landowners.

Does USAID’s coordination make the process faster? 

USAID’s coordination is extremely important. As a third party, USAID supports the MLOs and the SNR. It is easier when we can count on the contribution of physical and institutional resources of an entity such as USAID, compared to when it is done directly between the territorial entity and the municipal administration. In the municipalities that have USAID support we can deliver a lot more land titles and the goals are achieved in a faster and more comprehensive way. A clear example of this is here in Tierralta where we have delivered more than 1,950 land titles since 2017.

In July 2023, Tierralta delivered 261 land titles. Why was that significant?

Of the 261 urban land titles, 179 were delivered to women. This means that almost 70% of the titles benefit women, and this is extremely valuable because historically, property in Colombia has benefited mostly men. In Tierralta, where the first pact was signed with the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) for the surrender of weapons and where historically there has been so much violence, the most vulnerable have always been women and children.

What does it mean for a woman to be a landowner?

It means that they are the legal owners of their homes. When a woman is the legal landowner, and the title is registered with the Registry Office, it gives her access to government programs and subsidies, for example for home improvements, also to a mortgage if she needs it, and her children can inherit the property for future generations. And of course, she is making sure that her children have a home which is protected by the government.

How do Municipal Land Offices facilitate the work of the SNR?

They facilitate coordination, because it is very difficult to reach certain regions from the central level. I repeat, Tierralta is a great example because there is a Property Registration office close by in Montería, and this makes it easier for the staff of the MLO to coordinate with the SNR. Issuing an administrative act for the ownership of a property requires a lot of previous steps, including on-the-ground verification and the certification of historical titles that the municipal administration may or may not have. So it is very important that these teams are in the regions, because this could not be done from an office in Bogotá. This also increases the hiring of local employees, since they are the ones who know their region.

USAID has supported the SNR with the digitization of property registration files, how does this contribute to the efficiency of the SNR today?

There was a lot of money invested, but we are still missing a significant amount of files. I recently spoke with some registrars who benefitted from USAID’s Land for Prosperity Activity in Santander de Quilichao and Puerto Tejada in Cauca, and they mentioned the advantage of having the files not only digitized but also indexed. This allows them to search within a PDF file and not have to be exposed to a dusty physical file where they don’t know if they will find what they’re looking for.

Cross-posted from USAID Exposure