USAID and the Colombian Government are clearing up land and property conflicts in Cáceres in order to promote a formal land market and spur rural development

In 2011, Walter Tapia was lucky enough to find a small house near his father in the town of Buenos Aires, located in Cáceres, an isolated municipality in northern Colombia. He put money and sweat into the cinder block house by adding a cement floor, tiling the bathroom, and improving the kitchen’s countertops and backsplash. By 2017, his house felt like a home.

That same year, the owner of the land showed up knocking on his door to ask Walter why he was living in a home built on the owner’s land. Walter never knew the land had a previous owner and the only proof of ownership he had was a notarized compra-venta, denoting how much he paid for the house. Such receipts are typical for property transactions in rural Colombia. Now, Walter faces a difficult negotiation process and a legal battle that he’s not prepared to stage or pay for.

More than a decade before, the mayor of Cáceres had granted a group of empty lots to poor, rural families, but the government provided them with neither a registered land title nor any type of housing subsidies to assist with housing. Unable to build their homes, most of the families moved away in search of other opportunities. Later on, a subsequent mayor provided other families with housing subsidies, and they then unknowingly built on the already spoken for lots.

Two doors down lives Walter’s sister. She found out she faces the same issue as Walter, earlier this year. Around the corner there are more, hundreds of cases more. This neighborhood of Buenos Aires is a textbook example of the type of confusion surrounding property ownership in rural municipalities like Cáceres.

“I don’t want to spend any more money on fixing up my house, because I have no idea what is going to happen and I might never see it again,” a dejected Walter says.

 

 

A massive property sweep

In Cáceres, Colombia’s land administration agencies hope to clear up these types of land conflicts using a land formalization methodology developed by USAID and promoted by the government. The multipurpose cadaster campaign updates the municipality’s official plot map—known as the cadaster—delivers land titles to landowners and brings much needed clarity to property ownership. The campaign, overseen by the National Land Agency (ANT) and supported by USAID, is based on a similar land titling pilot successfully carried out in the municipality of Ovejas, Sucre between 2018 and 2019.

 

The innovative approach is based on a strategy that integrates social outreach, careful legal analysis, and critical coordination with government agencies to update land ownership information for Cáceres’ more than 11,000 parcels. The methodology has evolved since the Ovejas Pilot, improving through lessons learned, and is proving that a massive approach, which combines titling and cadaster, reduces redundancy. When land entities work together, the government can reduce costs by 60% as well as the time it takes to formalize a property and update the rural cadaster.

Helping to bring the massive titling endeavor is a team of more than 100 land formalization experts that coordinates with community leaders and triangulates information to the ANT and other agencies. The team is composed of land surveyors, legal experts, and social workers who are well into year two of operation.

In Cáceres, 8 out of 10 properties are informally owned. Properties are typically passed down from generation to generation, abandoned by families due to violence, or been granted by local government, but without land titles. But due to violence stemming from territorial disputes, the last time Colombia’s cadaster authority, IGAC, updated the municipality’s map of properties was in 2003.

To confront the lack of the public’s experience and knowledge related to a formal land market, the campaign employs a robust social strategy that relies on a group of 20 community leaders. The community leaders are essential in order to reach residents with important information about the process and key dates to keep on the calendar.

Ana Cristina Marchena is a community leader who lives down the road from Walter Tapia. She is working with the land formalization campaign to prepare residents with the information they need. Marchena and her colleagues received training in basic land tenure policy and how to title a property in Colombia. She prepares residents for exercises in social mapping, assists with locating residents who have been displaced, and helps communities flag major land conflicts in their neighborhoods or towns.

“The campaign’s workers cannot simply go into a rural community. They need somebody who knows the people, and my community recognizes me as a leader because I am always working with women and children. The community trusts me, and I can speak to them in their language,” says Marchena.

Perhaps Marchena’s most important role is as the nexus between the land formalization teams and armed groups who continue to play a role in the lives of so many rural villagers. As a trusted leader, Marchena can communicate with armed actors and prepare villages for the land formalization activities without unexpected episodes of violence resulting in turf wars or misunderstandings.

A far-reaching campaign

USAID is supporting 11 municipal-wide land titling campaigns across Colombia. Each campaign depends on a variety of factors and is expected to require an average of two years to complete implementation. By 2025, the government will have updated more than 115,000 parcels in the national cadaster with the possibility of delivering up to 40,000 land titles.

The updated rural land cadaster will include high-resolution maps defining property borders with more precision than ever before in the region’s history. A detailed cadaster reduces land conflicts and gives the local and regional governments critical information to plan land use strategies and investments that meet the needs of the population.

 

 

 

 

 

Team of land formalization experts in Colombia.

Beyond land tenure: integrated development

Cáceres has long been of strategic importance to USAID and the government, and this attention has led to a cluster of initiatives. Joint efforts in the territory go beyond the municipality-wide land formalization campaign. USAID’s comprehensive rural development strategy is also developing the capacity of rural producers, such as honey producers in Bajo Cauca, and engaging the private sector to invest in conflict-affected municipalities. By focusing on general issues in rural development, USAID land tenure programming addresses property-related challenges while opening financing routes to reach underfunded areas. This approach bridges the gap between a land title and rural development and helps the government achieve its goals to build self-reliance and promote a more stable, peaceful, and prosperous Colombia.

The new Jerusalem

For 800 families, Nuevo Jerusalem is still a dream. The new settlement, located 30 kilometers from Cáceres, Antioquia sees one or two new families arrive every day. Most of them have been displaced from their homes due to the violence and threats that make life impossible in this pocket of rural Colombia known as Bajo Cauca. With nowhere to go, the families attempt to integrate into shanty towns with scrap wood and plastic coverings. Every month, hundreds of people begin their journey to create a home for their families.

Nuevo Jerusalem paints an accurate picture of how towns are created in today’s Colombia: through invasiones or informal settlements created by internally displaced people (IDP). Colombia is home to a population of more than 6 million IDP—second only to Syria—and has the unfortunate distinction of being the world’s country with the highest number of IDPs and the least number of refugee camps.

With no water, sewage, or electricity, Nuevo Jerusalem will eventually require the municipality of Cáceres to face a problematic reality: find the resources to invest in infrastructure for these displaced families and rezone the land to allow for residential use.

“This is how cities expand in today’s Colombia. The problem is that the municipal government is underfunded and cannot meet the needs of these families,” explains Wilmer Molina, a social worker employed by the Cáceres Municipal Land Office. “On the other hand, the town’s population could mean more than 800 votes, so maybe somebody will help them someday.”

“Unfortunately that’s how Colombia works.”

Through his work, Molina is entwined with Cáceres land issues. He represents one part of a multi-pronged effort supported by USAID to clear up confusion around land ownership, update the municipality’s property cadaster, deliver land titles to residents, and promote a functioning land market. The Municipal Land Office (MLO) is an integral part of Colombia’s National Land Agency’s goal to ensure that the municipality’s 11,000 plus parcels are formalized and reflected in the nation’s rural cadaster. The MLO is located in downtown Cáceres and receives dozens of people each week looking for answers about their properties, laws, and procedures.

 

 

 

 

 

© 2022 Land for Prosperity

Cross posted from Land for Prosperity Exposure site

Three USAID programs in Colombia are working together to build the capacity local government to leverage USAID investments, mobilize resources, and improve basic services for rural populations

When people talk about Colombia’s Bajo Cauca region, located north of Medellin, many conjure chapters of the most dramatic violence in the history of the nation’s war. But that perception is changing in Valencia, a small municipality of 42,000 people in Bajo Cauca. In the wake of the 2016 Peace Accords, Valencia has benefited from development programs and become an example of how coordinated efforts made through USAID investments can transform Colombia’s rural territory.

In August, farmers living in the village of Santo Domingo saw how Valencia’s Municipal Land Office delivered land titles to 43 families who had been living on unformalized land for decades. They also witnessed how the local land office titled their health clinic, officially making it a municipal property. The property title is one of the first steps to investing in public goods, since public funds can be spent on health clinics that sit on legalized property. The USAID-funded Land for Prosperity (LFP) is supporting municipalities like Valencia with financial and technical assistance to run local land offices and improve land governance.

USAID Partnerships

“By supporting the Municipal Land Office and land formalization, USAID is also supporting rural development, a in this particular case, improving the local health clinic,” said Héctor Sepúlveda, LFP’s Regional Coordinator of Bajo Cauca Antioqueño, where Valencia is located.

Land for Prosperity is USAID’s largest investment in land tenure programming in the world, aimed at strengthening Colombia’s land administration systems and improving rural development and the conditions of rural households.

“USAID is our strategic partner, both in terms of human resources and the Municipal Land Office,” explains Eliécer Martínez, Valencia’s Secretary of Planning. “USAID provided us with the most modern land survey equipment that is used nationally and internationally.”

Since 2016, USAID has increased its focus on Colombia’s Bajo Cauca region, ensuring that its programs avoid repetition and build on each other’s work. In the case of a health clinic titled by the Municipal Land Office, USAID Responsive Governance Program then structures a project to manage funds for the clinic’s improvements in infrastructure and equipment. Then the USAID Partners for Transparency Program creates a civil society group to oversee the funds invested in adapting the health post.

Under this integrated strategy, USAID programs in Colombia can reach those underfunded municipalities historically affected by the armed conflict with complementary services. While Land for Prosperity increases the government’s capacity for land governance and promotes a culture of formal land ownership, the Responsive Governance program improves the management of public finances while the Partners for Transparency program leverages local capacity and commitment to promote a culture of transparency and accountability.

“We can’t lay a single brick if the property is not titled. Land formalization is the first step. Now that the municipality has the registered land title, we can start building and improving the health clinic.”
– Orlando Benítez, Santo Domingo’s health director

Filling Gaps

Land for Prosperity has facilitated the titling of 10 municipal properties in Valencia, including the Santo Domingo health clinic. In addition, the Municipal Land Office has titled 91 private urban parcels, giving poorer residents land titles for land they have owned for decades.

“In Santo Domingo, we are relieved to be getting a health clinic. We have a school but have been missing a health clinic for a long time,” Benítez says. “It is essential for the community, and thanks to USAID programs for moving this project forward.”

Once built, the health post will benefit more than 2,500 people from Santo Domingo and neighboring villages Cocuelo and Cocuelo Medio. It will have outpatient services, dentistry, and medical check-ups. To see a doctor, the inhabitants of Santo Domingo and neighboring villages must pay 50,000 pesos (USD $12) in travel costs to reach Valencia, which is a lot for a farmer whose income, in the best of cases, reaches USD $500 a month.

“In Valencia, USAID saw the opportunity to work on an identifiable need, which is the health center, then we managed to formalize the property,” says Andrea Olaya, Regional Manager of Land For Prosperity. “Partners for Transparency and its overseers are going to be very attentive to the entry of resources.

Concerted Efforts

USAID has prioritized ten regional integration initiatives including Nariño’s Pacific coast (Tumaco), Bajo Cauca, and Catatumbo (Norte de Santander). USAID is investing in property formalization, strengthening local government capacity, and agriculture, all with a differentiated gender approach that places an emphasis on the needs of rural women.

“USAID’s Regional Integration Initiative is crucial because it seeks the synergy among all the initiatives being implemented to produce a greater impact for the populations,” says Andrea Olaya, Regional Manager of Land for Prosperity.

USAID is supporting 11 municipal-wide land titling campaigns across Colombia. Each campaign depends on a variety of factors and is expected to require an average of two years to complete implementation. By 2025, the government will have updated more than 115,000 parcels in the national cadaster with the possibility of delivering up to 40,000 land titles.

 

 

 

 

A Health Clinic in Santander de Quilichao, Cauca, titled with support from USAID

In Bajo Cauca, LFP is supporting the municipal wide parcel sweep in Caceres, and Colombia’s National Land Agencies are supporting the parcel sweep in Valencia.

Under the Programs with a Territorial Approach strategy created by the government following the 2016 Peace Accords, places like Valencia have been favored with initiatives managed by the Territorial Renewal Agency (ART) and the municipality.

“In addition to the Land Office, we are highly grateful to USAID programs such as the one that provided us with the road inventory, making us the first and only municipality in Cordoba to have it,” said Valencia’s Secretary of Planning, Eliecer Martinez. “These projects are not physically seen but greatly benefit the people.

Cross posted from Land for Prosperity Exposure site

Volunteer community leaders are building trust and hope among rural citizens and spreading knowledge about land rights

Every morning Luz Estela Velandia wakes up to jog. A spry woman in her late sixties, she is vivacious as ever. She has hundreds of medals from a career in athletics, but these days jogging is as much about her health as it is about her community.

While roosters squawk, she runs by neighboring farms and thinks about her neighbors. She considers a variety of land conflicts common in her village that have split families and divided neighbors. In one family, two brothers are fighting over who gets what land after their father passed away. Over there, a family has built a shack and occupied an empty space next to the dirt road. On another plot of land, which was granted to them by the government in the 90s, some 17 families are living and farming under one single land title, and none can agree on anything.

La Luna is located in the municipality of Fuentedeoro where 6 out of 10 parcels are informally owned. Historically, Colombian land owners are responsible for titling and registering their properties with the state, but due to costs, complicated land laws, and the absence of government services in rural areas, informal land markets thrive.

 

 

 

 

Some 60% of the properties in Fuentedeoro lack a registered land title. USAID is supporting government to update the land cadaster and deliver land titles.

In La Luna the majority of people do not have a registered property title, and the conflicts seem to be endless. The subject of land tenure has become one of Velandia’s passions. Over the last year, she has learned more about property issues facing her neighbors than ever before. So, when she finds time between jogging, crafting, and leading La Luna’s Community Action Committee, she is teaching people about land rights and how property is titled and administered under Colombia’s arcane laws. Like hundreds of other rural municipalities in Colombia, Fuentedeoro has a decades-long history of violence, tragedy, and the struggle for land rights that has shaped its collective psyche. Under these conditions, reaching the community is not always simple.

“Fuentedeoro is the kind of place where people won’t open the door to strangers or give out personal information. People do not feel safe, and with the recent presidential elections, there is still a lot of uncertainty in the air.

Velandia’s job is to allay some of these fears and assure her neighbors that the government’s objective to increase land tenure security in rural areas is a legitimate, long-term commitment. For the last five years, pressure to title property and strengthen the formal land market has been percolating in the municipality thanks in part to USAID-funded programming to establish a Municipal Land Office and to examine the titling of properties of families living on many parcels under one land title.

In 2021, Velandia became one of dozens of community outreach volunteers raising awareness about land rights, the benefits of land titling, and the ongoing land formalization campaign in Fuentedeoro. As a volunteer, she received training in land formalization issues and social issues with supporting a culture of formal land ownership. The training, which is provided under the USAID funded Land for Prosperity program, includes a kit of teaching tools designed to simplify concepts.

“Before this, I knew nothing about land administration and Colombia’s land laws,” she admits.

Volunteers and land titling specialists at work in Fuentedeoro, Meta in 2022.

Massive Land Titling

Fuentedeoro is one of 11 initiatives funded by USAID and supported by Colombia’s land entities, including the National Land Agency. In total, the Fuentedeoro parcel sweep or barrido predial, as it is commonly referred to in town, aims to net over 2,000 rural property titles for landowners, some of whom have waited 40 years for a registered property title.

Just as important, the campaign will update the municipality’s rural cadaster for more than 6,000 parcels. The cadaster, which was last updated in 2006, is a master chart of all rural properties. Not only have properties changed owners since then, but land has been subdivided among families or sold to newcomers.

This methodology was created and refined by USAID and the Colombian government following the 2016 Peace Accords. Parcel sweeps streamline the collection and processing of property information in order to reduce costs and provide land agencies with integrated and reliable land data. Until recently, neither local nor national government agencies had complete control over this information.

With USAID funding and technical leadership, for the first time ever, Colombia’s three major land administration agencies are cooperating, sharing information, and supporting land titling campaigns to reach a goal of updating more than 100,000 parcels and delivering up to 40,000 land titles over the next five years.

Playing Games

Large land formalization campaigns rely heavily on social workers and outreach, and community liaisons like Luz Estela Velandia are one of the most effective ways to ensure participation. Trusted and motivated neighbors can fill the spaces where the government has been absent. Many in Fuentedeoro have long distrusted the government and believe land titling is just a ploy to take their land away. To overcome this information barrier, Velandia mobilizes her neighbors through neighborhood Whatsapp groups, where she can quickly reach 150 families living in her village.

In the groups, she advertises outreach meetings where she then uses the teaching kit, which includes flip charts, games, and puzzles to improve recognition of complicated land topics. The memory matching game, which requires participants to match land administration concepts, is a crowd favorite.

“The kit is didactic and participatory,” she explains. “It has to be this way, because the subject matter is complex, especially for people who may not have a very high level of education.” The teaching resources are also an attraction. In her first outreach event, 60 people came to learn about the land titling.

“One of the first things we learn together is the difference between a registered land title and a carta-venta,” she says. The carta-venta is a notarized receipt typical of a land transaction in rural Colombia. Over three months, she has reached over 100 people with the community crash course in land rights.

Velandia is not always successful. One group of families living on a collective land parcel say they do not want to participate in the massive land titling campaign, which is free of charge. Over the last five years, the families have invested thousands of dollars in a lawyer who claims he will individually title their properties. Though the government cannot force people to title their land, the campaign still updates property information in the rural cadaster.

Benefits of a formal land market

“I tell people that, yes, they will have to pay property taxes, but a land title can also bring them government subsidies, programs, and better services. I tell them a land title represents their rights. And I tell them that women have the same rights as men to appear on a property title as a man.”

These campaigns to title thousands of properties at once form part of the government strategy to move away from a demand-driven land administration policy to one in which the government assumes the cost of first-time formalization. By doing so, it will alleviate major time and cost burdens that prevent most low-income rural landholders from seeking a valid title. Once a property is registered, future title transfers will be much less time and cost intensive. The Fuentedeoro campaign started in October 2021 and will take place over a period of 12-18 months.

For now, community volunteers like Velandia are becoming the government’s most important allies to increase public participation.

 

 

 

 

The Land for Prosperity Activity is raising awareness about land formalization among citizens and partnering with academic and educational institutions to prepare the next generations of Colombians for a culture of formal land ownership.

“The key is personalizing all these relationships. We spend time together and have coffee and teatime and we can be honest about what is happening in our lives. Especially for the women, I give the program more credibility.”

Cross posted from Land for Prosperity Exposure site

With USAID support, Puerto Rico, Colombia is strengthening land governance and improving opportunities to invest in public spaces

A Tragic Day

As she walks, Elizabeth Ríos seems to carry images of the guerrilla and paramilitary violence that shook the municipality of Puerto Rico for much of the 1990s and 2000s.

“We had security problems,” says Ríos looking off into the distance, recalling times she doesn’t know how she survived. “One day there were two dead, another day, three. The town was divided until 1999, when the guerrillas took control.”

It was on July 10, 1999, when some 2,000 guerrillas of the FARC’s now defunct 42nd Front stormed and besieged the entrance to Puerto Rico and surrounded the police station, which at the time was staffed by about 30 policemen.

“Those policemen were like cannon fodder,” Ríos still recalls with fear, evoking the images of horror in her mind. “The guerrilla shot them with rifles and threw gas canisters at them.”

The bloodshed ended after a 40-hour siege of the police station leaving five policemen dead. The remaining tired 28 policemen gave up when they had no more ammunition or food and were kidnapped by the insurgents.

For Ríos, who has been a member of the Puerto Rico municipal council for 15 years and knows the history of the conflict in the municipality, the FARC takeover also destroyed the local branch of the Caja Agraria, a gas station, and left the town’s population without electricity. To never forget this difficult chapter, with the support of Ríos and the council, the battle site was converted into a memorial park in 2013.

Untitled Parcels

The Parque de la Vida y de la Paz, as the memorial park is officially known, has a monument commemorating the fallen policemen and those who were kidnapped during the three-day siege. But the parcel of land where the battalion was once located has never been titled in the name of the municipality. In fact, hardly any public properties in Puerto Rico are titled. Following the 2016 Peace Accords signed with the FARC, formalizing public properties became a priority. Clear land rights are necessary for rural development investments. With support from USAID, through the Land for Prosperity program, Puerto Rico titled the parcel where the park stands. The procedure is relatively simple, but no less important.

In 2022, USAID partnered with Puerto Rico leaders to create a Municipal Land Office. In its first six months, the local land office, which is embedded under the municipality’s Secretary of Planning has identified dozens of public parcels in the municipality that cannot receive national or regional funding without a registered land title.

“Legalizing property is fundamental. If not, we find ourselves in this bottleneck that, if they are not legalized, no investment can be made in them. Historically, no one cared about legalizing property, and the land administration process was poorly executed. This is an example of a mistake from the past that brings us consequences today.”-Diana Navarro, Mayor of Puerto Rico

In the Municipality’s Name

With USAID’s support, the Municipal Land Office has titled 10 public properties including the parcels of the Municipality Offices, the Fire Department, Villa García Park, El Morichal school, Villa Suárez Park and the memorial to the police battalion, Parque de la Vida.

“To have a local land office in the municipality, with the support of development partners, is very important,” said Mayor Navarro. “We still need to title 43 schools, four health centers, and another 51 community spaces.”

In addition to legalizing and titling the municipality’s public properties, the Municipal Land Office can title private properties in urban areas. The office’s staff includes land surveyors, lawyers, and social workers who raise awareness and promote a culture of formal land ownership. For the 12,000 inhabitants of Puerto Rico, the office represents a place to go with questions and learn about the land formalization processes. This year, Puerto Rico has already delivered the 32 land titles for urban parcels, all free of charge. The initial goal is to title 400 properties.

Juan Eduardo Ruiz, Puerto Rico’s Secretary of Planning, says it was vital to create a municipal land office in Puerto Rico because the office decentralizes land administration and improves coordination with Colombia’s national land agencies and property registry.

“Before this, the measurements of properties were never accepted by the IGAC’s cadastral offices because of differences, and a cadastral correction process had to be done,” says Secretary Ruiz. “Now we have the capacity to get it right.”

In the Meta Department, USAID is supporting a handful of land offices that have already titled hundreds of properties, including in neighboring Puerto Lleras and Fuentedeoro.

“I already knew about the Fuentedeoro Land Office,” Ruiz said. “I knew Puerto Rico would give strong results with an office here. It has been very well received in the municipality.”

Besides providing land tenure security for families who have lived in Puerto Rico for decades, among other benefits, landowners can access credit and government subsidies to improve their homes or for agricultural projects in rural areas since financial entities are more likely to lend money to people who have a registered property title.

“Now it is essential to legalize property in rural areas”, adds Mayor Navarro. With the resources that come from the payment of the property tax of the legalized properties, the Mayor’s Office will be able to raise money through property taxes to improve basic services in the municipality.

Puerto Rico has already delivered the 32 land titles for urban parcels and aims to title 400 properties.

This blog is cross-posted from the Land for Prosperity exposure site. 

This post originally appeared on LandPortal.

Mozambique’s 1997 land law recognises land rights acquired through customary practice and good faith occupancy, even without a formal title. However, the lack of transparent public confirmation or documentation can lead to conflict. Sr. Land and Resource Governance Advisor Karol Boudreaux discusses how a partnership between USAID and agribusiness Grupo Madal has helped the company and local communities address long-standing land-access issues and improve livelihoods.

What is causing conflict over land rights?

Mozambique’s land laws allow citizens to have their land rights confirmed by the verbal testimony of other community members – and this testimony creates a legal claim that is just as valid as title documentation, even without documented proof. Despite this, the lack of documentation of community and individual land rights can lead to tensions between neighbours over boundaries or rights to specific areas. It also places many Mozambicans in a weak position when investors seek rights to their land for forestry, farming, and other uses.

In central Mozambique’s Zambézia province, due to a lack of available farmland, roughly 50,000 smallholder farmers have started growing their crops on unused land legally held by the agribusiness Grupo Madal. Most of these farmers are women, using small tracts of land to grow mostly food for their families. At the same time, in the communities adjacent to Grupo Madal’s farms, thousands of others have acquired land rights, but very few have documented proof. This lack of documentation has led to tensions and conflicts between people within these communities competing over scarce land.

USAID’s Integrated Land and Resource Governance (ILRG) programme is partnering with Grupo Madal and a local civil society organisation (CSO), the Associação de Apoio ao Desenvolvimento (Development Support Association or NANA) to raise awareness of land and resource rights and improving tenure security, while addressing harmful gender norms and promoting women’s empowerment and economic security.

The USAID-Grupo Madal partnership

In 2016, Grupo Madal changed ownership, prompting a shift away from an estate-based production model, which had been in place since Mozambique’s colonial period, to a more inclusive business model designed to intentionally integrate and benefit neighbouring communities. The company’s new approach has included an initiative to help resource-poor farmers who were using Madal land to transition into a more secure situation. The goal was to help the farmers feed their families and earn income, while providing a source of revenue for the company.

How the public-private partnership works

The partnership initially worked with 3,300 smallholder farmers (over 67% were women) from 14 communities adjacent to four Madal plantations. Through an innovative model for ‘ingrowers’ (mostly landless women farming on Madal land) and ‘outgrowers’ (women and men farmers with land in neighbouring communities), the partnership seeks to include these smallholder farmers in Madal’s supply chains.

After an initial assessment to gauge community needs, the partnership has focused on introducing land-use agreements and farming contracts for ingrower families to strengthen their land-use rights and provide an opportunity to enter commercial value chains to help increase incomes. Families farming on Madal lands now have access to larger plots, allowing them to grow and sell commodities to Madal and grow food crops for household consumption. Madal specifies the crops it requires, provides appropriate inputs and technical advice, and guarantees to buy the resulting harvest.

Madal has also recruited seven community members, four of them women, with farming experience and communication skills to support the company’s extension officers and increase engagement within the communities. Most Madal extension agents are men, so engaging women as community facilitators has improved the company’s ability to reach women farmers. This community-based extension model inspires other women by increasing their technical skills, self-esteem, and confidence.

Now, with greater tenure security, these farmers have also organised themselves into producers’ clubs. “Before, each one of us women farmers worked separately. Now we are organised in producers’ clubs,” said Florinda Francisco, an ingrower farmer. “We have confidence in working with Madal and we want to sell our production to the company because they are the ones who made the land available for us.”

Documenting and managing community lands

Neighbouring outgrower communities have also received help to document their collective land rights and their individual farms. Similar to the ingrower agreement, some may decide to sign contracts to produce crops for Madal, receiving inputs and technical support.

With support from NANA, communities clarify their boundaries using mobile applications to secure tenure (MAST), a participatory land-documentation approach that improves transparency and equity and emphasises social inclusion and gender equality. The approach begins by raising communities’ awareness of their legal land rights. Communities then establish land associations to manage their land and natural resources, engage in participatory land-use planning, and develop community land-use regulations.

Impacts and next steps

Since 2020, the USAID-Madal partnership has mapped 8,000 hectares in 14 communities adjacent to Madal lands through participatory processes, enabling 6,500 families to receive certificates of community land rights from the provincial government. A total of 1,300 ingrower farmers (85% women) have entered into land-use agreements on Madal lands, and 2,000 outgrower farmers (55% women) have delimited their family lands, opening up opportunities for them to benefit from contract farming.

The partnership’s approach to strengthen land claims and build trusting and beneficial relationships between companies and neighbouring farmers is uncommon in Mozambique. It has the potential to create a viable model for responsible land-based investment that benefits private-sector actors and communities, and improves women’s economic security. The Mozambique Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has already expressed interest in supporting expansion of this innovative model to other companies and provinces.

Grupo Madal sees this activity as a major opportunity to clarify land rights and build trust with communities. The partnership has helped Madal to focus on rehabilitating its historically unused landholdings and integrating communities into their supply chain with benefits for both. The company has also welcomed USAID’s support in engaging with farmers – most of whom are women – in a gender-responsive way.

Sensitising private companies to land-related issues and supporting them to set up inclusive models can benefit communities and help secure their long-term rights to access and use land. Despite inherent power imbalances, with support, farmers can work with companies to clarify their land holdings, giving them the security they need to invest in their plots. Smallholders can also increase their access to inputs, technical skills, and markets, thereby improving their livelihoods, food security, and well-being. Public-private partnerships can be particularly beneficial for women, allowing them to feed their families while helping to earn additional income. Working with companies and CSOs can help ensure community rights and needs are considered, and help aggregate community voices for greater impact. Further support from the Government of Mozambique is essential to scale-up and institutionalise these approaches. Taking this holistic approach, USAID is helping improve livelihoods for thousands of Mozambique’s women and men.