News

USAID Magazine FrontLines Profiles PRADD Project in Recent Issue

Anthony Piaskowy — 2012-03-16T04:00:00Z

The article "From Blood Diamonds to Fishponds: Land-Rights Project for Central African Republic Miners Has Ripple Effect" describes the successes of a project led by USAID's Land Tenure Unit.

Celebrating International Women's Day in the context of Land Tenure

Anthony Piaskowy — 2012-03-08T05:00:00Z

Ministers, Excellencies, honorable representatives of member countries, civil society participants and guests: This morning we begin our session with recognition of International Women’s Day.

Each year the United Nations declares an International Women's Day theme. This year, the theme is “Empower Rural Women – End Hunger and Poverty.”

Perhaps this is a sign of growing recognition of what we already know—that the work we are engaged in this week is extremely relevant to the lives of people around the world. The conclusion of these negotiations of the Voluntary Guidelines will produce a document that provides a framework for countries to develop laws and policies to be used in the context of national food security.

The statistics supporting this are numerous:

- The FAO estimates that women produce over 50% of all food grown worldwide. In developing countries, women produce 60%–80% of the food grown, yet own less than 2% of the land.

- The recent State of Food and Agriculture report found that giving women the same access to agricultural resources as men could increase production on women's farms in developing countries by 20 to 30 percent – enough to feed up to 150 million more of the world’s hungry.

- FAO Deputy Director General Tutwiler has stated, “Female farmers produce less than male farmers because they do not have access to seeds, tools, fertilizer and credit, not because women are worse farmers.”

Many people in the world lack secure tenure rights and access to adequate resources; however, we know that women face more and greater obstacles in accessing and obtaining rights to resources than men do. In many instances, women’s rights come though marriage and are not secure. A divorced or widowed woman is likely to lose her tenure rights, yet still carry the responsibility to provide for her family. Without secure tenure rights, she and her children are less likely to have food security, and more likely to live in poverty. Conversely, the World Bank has stated that reducing gender inequality leads to reductions in infant and child mortality, improvements in nutrition, and increased economic productivity.

In support of combating the tenure rights issues faced by women, we have appropriately named human dignity, non-discrimination, equity and justice, and gender equality as essential principles of implementation in Section 3B of these Voluntary Guidelines. These guidelines, once adopted, will clarify issues of tenure rights and impact the lives of women around the world. We hope they will accelerate the efforts that many cooperation assistance organizations are already making to address gender inequality with regards to tenure, as demonstrated by the slideshow that has been playing on the screen.

In closing, I’d like us all to take a moment to acknowledge the many contributions women make every day in tackling these issues and in advancing development globally. I can think of no better way to honor women and their work than by continuing these negotiations and coming to consensus this week on a document to be sent to the CFS for adoption.

Thank you.

Property Rights Reform Makes Progress in Timor Leste

Anthony Piaskowy — 2012-02-29T05:00:00Z

Earlier this month, the Parliament in Timor Leste passed three laws related to property rights. The new measures, which now await signature by the President, are expected to provide a foundation for resolving disputes and registering land; prescribe procedures under which the Government can expropriate land; and create a fund to compensate property owners who lose their property rights. These new laws will have a large impact on economic growth, which stalled when the Indonesian occupation ended and civil war ripped the country apart.

The new legislation is a significant accomplishment that USAID and other bi-lateral donors have supported over the long term. Since 2007, USAID has invested $10 million in supporting the Strengthening Property Rights in Timor Leste (SPRTL) project. This project addressed serious concerns related to land-based conflict raised in a 2006 Conflict Vulnerability Assessment. The project’s main objectives included:

- Promoting public information and awareness of rights related to land and the process of registering claims to land in Timor-Leste;
- Supporting the development of a land policy, laws, and implementing regulations;
- Supporting the development of a national land body in Timor-Leste;
- Supporting improved land administration in Timor-Leste; and,
- Supporting effective dispute resolution, mediation and reconciliation efforts in Timor-Leste.

Given the substantial delay in passing a new Land Law, the project adopted a flexible approach, and also created an alternate process for registering and mediating property claims. This process – known as “Ita Nia Rai” or “Our Land” – operated independently and successfully for several years but now has been adopted by Timor Leste’s Ministry of Finance. As of October 2011, 53,814 land claims had been recorded for 50,101 parcels of land, in a claims process that is free of charge to participants and decentralized. Of the 53,814 claims, only 9.2 percent are disputed.

Additionally, Ita Nia Rai reached over 12,000 Timorese with public awareness activities including community forums, focus group discussions, workshops/seminars, and annual forums to explain the land claims process. The project also developed 16 descriptive videos; nine are available on YouTube. These efforts have helped inform the Timorese public of opportunities that exist under Ita Nia Rai to bring claims to property and thereby strengthen their property rights.

Progress in Afghanistan Profiled by Agency

Anthony Piaskowy — 2012-02-02T05:00:00Z

Land tenure work supports good governance, econmic growth and conflict resolution--all important priorities in Afghanistan. To learn more about USAID projects to address this, read the IMPACTblog post.

Infographic on Women and Agriculture Highlights Land as a Development Constraint

Anthony Piaskowy — 2012-01-06T05:00:00Z

A recent USAID publication titled, The Global State of Agriculture, cites access to land as one reason why women farmers are less productive than men. Structures within the statutory and customary land tenure systems compounded by societal norms in many locations limit a woman's ability to secure land. Click the links below to see the infographic and a report outlining land tenure and property rights challenges for women.

Negotiations on FAO Voluntary Guidelines to Resume in March 2012

Anthony Piaskowy — 2011-12-12T05:00:00Z

Read CFS Chairman Yaya Asisa Olaitan Olaniran's Invitation Letter to the final round of negotiations on the Voluntary Guidelines.

The Working Group's Chair, Dr. Gregory Myers, explains the procedural rules for negotions and outlines work to be conducted beforehand by the Language Harmonization Group in the Chair's Letter.

USAID Partners With Diamond Industry to Further Support PRADD Project

Anthony Piaskowy — 2011-12-05T05:00:00Z

Click Here to read the Press Release from GIA.

USAID IMPACTblog Highlights Land Tenure Work

Anthony Piaskowy — 2011-11-02T04:00:00Z

Yesterday's IMPACTblog included an entry by the Land Tenure Unit Team Leader, Dr. Gregory Myers. Myers, in his role as chair for a UN committee developing guidelines for land tenure, outlines the negotiation process, current progress and potential outcomes of the committee's work.

UN News Organization Highlights Land Disputes, USAID Project in Timor Leste

Anthony Piaskowy — 2011-10-20T19:32:21Z

USAID's property rights project in Timor Leste (East Timor) plays a key role in helping settle land disputes on the small island in Southeast Asia. A recent article written by IRIN, the humanitarian news and analysis service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, describes the history of conflict surrounding land by highlighting one woman's story and outlining current progress to establishing land rights.

The U.S. Remains Committed to Protecting the Land Rights of People Around the World

Anthony Piaskowy — 2011-10-19T04:00:00Z

ROME – The United States government commends the United Nations Committee on Food Security (CFS) for the extraordinary work that it has done on the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Lands, Fisheries and Forests, achieving consensus on approximately seventy percent of the document during the July and October negotiations.

The U.S. government has dedicated substantial resources to the negotiation process and remains committed to completing Guidelines that will provide safeguards that protect the property rights of the vulnerable and marginalized, including indigenous people and women. The United States has been pleased to Chair these CFS-led Intergovernmental negotiations.

These Guidelines will establish an international framework to improve land governance, which will strengthen property rights, support transparent procedures for land allocation, and promote accessibility and accountability of land administration agencies.

Recent reports like the World Bank’s Rising Global Interest in Farmland, and Oxfam’s Land and Power, and stories in the press shed light on the phenomenon of large-scale land acquisitions, which are sometimes referred to as ‘land grabbing’, particularly in Africa. We recognize the concerns with some of the land investments that have taken place in recent years.

“We believe that weak land governance is at the heart of the ‘land grabbing’ phenomenon and that improving land governance is central to addressing it,” said Ertharin Cousin, the United States Representative to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organizations in Rome.

The U.S. government recognizes the need to ensure that safeguards are in place as investment in agriculture is necessarily expanded in order to meet the Millennium Development Goals and increase food security. These Guidelines will help governments attract responsible investment and put in place strong governance systems to prevent ‘land grabbing’. The Guidelines create a framework that will encourage small-holders to invest in their own farms and move towards food security.

Around the world, the U.S. government is actively supporting improvements in land governance that strengthen the property rights of local people and communities, and improve the capacity of land administration agencies to provide necessary services.

The U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) has committed over $250m in funding for land governance projects in 11 partner countries, and USAID in the past three years has funded $200m in land tenure programming in 30 countries around the world. Both anticipate making increased investments in this area over the coming years.

These programs are already working on the ground to put in place the principles of responsible land governance that are at the heart of the Voluntary Guidelines.

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Contact:
Michelle Los Banos-Jardina, Public Affairs Officer
Tel: +39-06-4674-3521, Cell: +39-335-549-1567
E-mail: losbanos-jardinamg@state.gov

Ann Wise, Public Affairs Program Assistant
Tel: +39-06-4674-3538, Cell: +39-334-654-6387
E-mail: wiseag@state.gov

Kenya Government Endorses New Method for Recognizing Community Land Rights

Anthony Piaskowy — 2011-09-30T04:00:00Z

Through its Kenya SECURE Project, USAID, in cooperation with the Kenya Ministry of Lands, recently developed the Community Land Rights Recognition (CLRR) Model, a process for providing legal registration of land held by communities under customary law. This is the first recognition of land owned as a result of customary usage in Kenya and will promote investment, better natural resource management and, in some parts of the country, reduce land grabbing.

Earlier this month, at the closing ceremonies of a workshop held to finalize the CLRR model and plan its implementation, the Assistant Minister for Lands, the Honorable Sylvester Wakoli Bifwoli, praised the work of the SECURE Project and officially endorsed the model as a Government of Kenya instrument for formalizing community land rights. Based on the endorsement, the project will mobilize a team of Ministry staff and other stakeholders in the coming weeks to initiate a pilot of the tool in four indigenous Boni and Bajuni communities in Lamu County.

Lamu County was selected as an ideal site for the project given the nexus of the natural resource management and land use issues within the complex economic and institutional context of the region. The model process will secure the rights of the local Boni and Bajuni communities who have occupied customarily-held land for over one thousand years and have been considered "squatters" without legal standing to advance their social and economic aspirations. The entire region has been a prime target for irregular, illegal, and extra-legal acquisition from speculators targeting the proposed Lamu Port South Sudan and Ethiopia Transport Corridor project area.

Lessons from the pilot projects will help refine the model for replication throughout the country in appropriate communities, and will help inform the development of new land legislation in accordance with the Constitution and the National Land Policy.

Developed based on provisions in Kenya’s 2010 Constitution, as well as the 2009 National Land Policy, the CLRR’s main goal is to provide a mechanism for the registration of community rights and interests to land in a systematic, transparent and cost-effective manner. As a system of land tenure in Kenya, “Community Land” is a new category introduced in the Constitution. This category strengthens the various provisions in the National Land Policy regarding the recognition of all modes of tenure, including customary and community land ownership. Almost all previous statutes on land were geared towards individualization of land with few provisions for recognizing communal rights and interests to land. Until these changes took effect, community land rights in Kenya have been held under the Group Ranch Representative Act, Trust Lands Act and Government Lands Act. These forms of land tenure are no longer recognized by the Land Policy, adopted by Parliament in 2009, and are replaced by "Community" and "Public" tenure regimes.

The Road to Progress

Webeditor — 2011-08-08T16:00:28Z

Original Source

While it is no secret that the U.S. is a staunch supporter of the Kimberley Process (KP), few know just how deep its support runs. Four years after the U.S. passed the Clean Diamond Trade Act and helped create the Kimberley Process, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) sent an assessment team to the Central African Republic (CAR) to investigate ways in which it could help the country better comply with the KP objectives. The assessment resulted in the creation of the Property Rights and Artisanal Diamond Development (PRADD) program, a joint USAID and U.S. State Department initiative launched in CAR in 2007 and in Liberia in May of 2010. “It was a pilot approach to try and clarify ownership rights,” said a USAID official close to the project. The creation of PRADD, explained the USAID official, was mainly to address the issue of “miners not having secure rights to the land they were mining on, and not properly recording their activities.” The project has two main goals: “First, we want to increase the amount of diamonds entering the legal chain of custody to comply with the KP, and second, we want to improve livelihoods of artisanal diamond communities.”

To achieve these goals, PRADD educates miners on the diamond industry, strengthens their ability to value their stones, trains them in other sustainable economic activities and works with governments to clarify and formalize property rights and related mining activities. The program runs on a U.S.–funded budget of $2.5 million, split roughly between CAR and Liberia, and is implemented by Tetra Tech ARD, a Burlington, Vermont–based environmental engineering and consulting firm.

CAR Successes

While it is too early to gauge PRADD’s effectiveness in Liberia, the program has made a lot of headway in CAR since its founding in 2007. In that country, according to USAID, PRADD has helped 1,525 artisanal diamond miners secure their property claims with the help of community validation and GPS mapping in the two diamond-producing provinces of Lobaye and Sangha-Mbaere.

PRADD has also geo-referenced 1,866 mining sites, and plans to transfer its database of these sites to the country’s Ministry of Mines, Energy, and Hydrology (MMEH), while training its staff in IT tracking techniques. USAID claims that these property right improvements have almost entirely eradicated land disputes in the project areas, which were at a high of 142 when the program started in 2007.

PRADD’s relationship with the CAR government is also strengthening, and has led to the government following some of the program’s advice, like lowering its 2011 artisanal mining licensing fee by 36 percent. More and more miners are also obtaining licenses. According to USAID, in the Province of Lobaye, the proportion of miners bearing an official license has increased from 5.1 percent in 2009 to 9.7 percent in 2010.

All of this bodes well for the government’s coffers. According to the Regional Directorate’s official figures, legal diamond production doubled by carat weight since 2007, rising from 4.1 percent to 8 percent, which translated into an extra $45,200 in export tax revenue for the CAR national treasury.

Community Outreach

The project’s main successes, however, are at the community level, where it helps foster economic diversification. “There have to be economic activities to rely on other than diamond mining, primarily because diamond mining is too much of a boom-and-bust industry,” observed the USAID official.

Since its start in CAR, PRADD has created 194 local associations that participate in a wealth of economic activities, including some targeted toward women, like soap making and tropical plant grinding. One of the most successful community development initiatives, continued the USAID official, was “to introduce miners to fish farming, so they can convert their mine pits into an alternative source of income.” By March 2011, of 193 reclaimed, exhausted diamond mines in the project areas, 102 had been converted into fish farms, while 91 were turned into fruit tree plots and vegetable gardens. The project has also had success in its public relations push to educate and inform the CAR public about responsible and sustainable mining. Since 2007, PRADD has launched 374 programs on artisanal mining in print and broadcast media throughout the country, and has spearheaded a national public awareness campaign tying the protection of the environment to increased income. According to a USAID project survey, the campaign has led more than 80 percent of miners to pledge to rehabilitate their exhausted mining sites.

Rough Road to Success

All of these successes have come with their fair share of challenges, especially in the early stages of the project. “Initially, building trust with the communities we were working in was very difficult — there was a lot of skepticism when we started four years ago. But when you work with these communities on a regular basis, you can build trust,” the USAID official said, adding “now they are very supportive of the program, and even the government itself has adopted the PRADD methodology.”

Gaining access to and overseeing mining sites was also particularly difficult in a region that has poor infrastructure and mobile communities. “These mining sites are in very remote areas — one site in CAR is a ten-hour drive from the capital on dirt roads,” recalled the U.S. official. “Additionally, artisanal mining communities are very migrant in nature, so sometimes you start working with some miners and then they move out of the community.”

Diamond Valuation

The PRADD program in CAR intensified its efforts to improve miners’ ability to valuate diamonds by building five diamond valuation workrooms in the country in early 2011. PRADD will transfer the workrooms over to local communities in October 2011 after a joint evaluation with CAR’s MMEH.

While these diamond valuation rooms are to be run by locals, they will follow the rules and structures developed by PRADD and the MMEH, including being run by a democratically elected diamond valuation board, with up to 12 members, which must include a treasurer, vice president, president and two trained diamond valuators.

PRADD and CAR’s MMEH also make members take an “Oath of Use,” whereby if they break certain rules, such as selling to unlicensed collectors, raising valuation fees or taking the valuation kit out of the workroom, they will lose all access to the equipment. Though the cost of these workrooms and equipment is relatively low for PRADD — around $5,000 each — the program takes the upkeep of these rooms very seriously. As the USAID official put it, “When we improve their knowledge and ability to valuate and prospect for diamonds, we in turn improve diamond production capability, and increase income to their community.”

Future Efforts

“Since 2007, PRADD has demonstrated its success and has reduced conflict in the areas where people were not investing in the property,” noted the USAID official, adding that while the program is focused on its efforts in CAR and Liberia, it is also looking to eventually expand to other diamond-producing countries in Africa, especially if the popularity of the program catches on and additional program funds can be made available. “We’ve been exploring partnerships with various foundations and companies, but at this point, we don’t have any signed agreements or commitments.”

Article from the Rapaport Magazine - August 2011.

Related Video:

Video: Rapaport Fair Trade Diamond, Jewelry Panel Discussion

Seeing the Real Impact of the Kimberley Process in a “For Sale” Sign

Web Editor — 2011-07-23T19:20:00Z

In my role as the U.S. working-level focal point to the Kimberley Process -- the international grouping designed to prevent rebel groups or their allies from selling diamonds to fuel their conflicts (“conflict diamonds”) -- I have become all too familiar with the popular arguments about what this Process, known as the “KP,” cannot do. Some say it cannot, for instance, “deal with” Zimbabwe. Others contend it cannot put an end to smuggling and cannot affirm that the diamond you buy in a store is entirely “clean.”

Given that backdrop, the last thing I expected to see on my recent trip to the Central African Republic (CAR) was the true impact and power of a Department of State-supported USAID program in place there since 2007, evidenced in the form of a “for sale” sign.

Let me explain. This program, called PRADD (Property Rights and Artisanal Diamond Development), focuses on clarifying and securing the land tenure/property rights of individual miners as a means of making artisanal mining a meaningful economic activity, independent of pernicious relationships with traders further up the chain. As a result, more diamonds are brought into the legal chain of custody, and miners' livelihoods are secured and strengthened. To date, more than 2,000 mining claims in CAR have been mapped and publicly validated, and had property rights certificates delivered, through PRADD -- meaning the CAR government recognizes miners' property rights where none existed before.

The impact of this reform-facilitating project in CAR is enormous, particularly in the power it gives back to the miners and local communities. In fact, PRADD has been so successful that the CAR government now plans to adopt and implement the program by itself. As such, it demonstrates the impact of the mission of the KP worldwide -- to ensure that the entire rough diamond supply chain is formalized and accordingly “ring-fenced” so that conflict diamonds cannot penetrate the system.

Now to the “for sale” sign. While driving through the remote village of Bossui in southwest CAR, I noted a sign posted by a local miner looking to sell or rent his mining site. While it may seem banal to us, this is almost revolutionary in an artisanal diamond mining area, since it is only possible because the rights to the site have been formally negotiated and boundaries demarcated with local community and government stakeholders. In addition to active mining sites like this one changing hands, mined-out sites are being sold so they can be used for alternative livelihood efforts (e.g., fish ponds and fruit orchards) that PRADD is facilitating. Previously, miners could much more easily have been evicted with no notice (often violently), and former mining sites could have rotted away as environmentally degraded areas with no economic potential; however, now real value is being created that goes directly to individuals and their communities.

To me, this is the essence of what the KP and PRADD are all about. The KP's primary requirement is that a country has “internal controls” to track diamonds from production to export. In too many places, however, this is not happening because socio-economic factors are not sufficient to allow a miner to sell into the formal system. But through a program like PRADD, which provides time and assistance to governments to strengthen their internal controls, and empowers vulnerable communities to become secure enough to buy and sell their mining rights, the KP can make a significant step towards eventually ending the trade in conflict diamonds -- and possibly do much more.

That is something we can all be proud to be a part of.

Original Blog Post US Dept. of State: DipNotes

Related Content: You can view photos from Special Advisor Brooks-Rubin's trip to Central Africa Republic here.

Launch of Focus on Land in Africa Website

Portal Admin — 2011-05-24T19:40:00Z

The Focus on Land in Africa website was developed by the World Resources Institute (WRI) and Landesa with the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The site is aimed at informing and educating development practitioners, donors, and policymakers about the relevance of land rights to their work. It currently feature modules highlighting the land tenure experiences and lessons from six sub-Saharan countries – Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Uganda – which are conveyed through a series of interactive slideshows, maps, timelines, diagrams, and publications. Plans are to expand the site to include several other countries.

Each country module is designed to educate development practitioners about critical land rights issues in Sub-Saharan Africa and deepen their appreciation for the role that land rights play in shaping livelihoods and development trajectories. The modules further seek to encourage greater consideration of land rights in the design and implementation of development projects and policies, so as to improve their outcomes and ultimate success.

Please visit the Focus on Land in Africa site as it continues to grow.

Help us to improve the site by sending your feedback and comments to WRI at focusonafrica@wri.org or Landesa at focusonafrica@landesa.org.

Forest Conservation Project Empowers Community to Restore Mau Forest’s Glory

Portal Admin — 2011-05-16T14:15:00Z

USAID is assisting the Kenya Government (GoK) to restore the forest and watersheds in the Mau Forest Complex (MFC) through a $7 million, two-year project called ProMara (for the Mara). On March 25th 2011, USAID/Kenya’s Deputy Mission Director James Hope officially launched ProMara at the project’s new Mau Outreach Center (MOC), on the outskirts of the forest. The Mau Forest Complex has a history of illegal and irregular land allocations. In 2009, GoK acted on Mau Task Force recommendations to revoke questionable titles, ordering the eviction of "illegal" settlers from the MFC. This resulted in controversy as well as uncertainty among remaining residents.