In celebration of this year's Earth Day, we sat down with World Wildlife Fund's (WWF) Chris Weaver over Skype to discuss the links between secure land and resource rights and WWF's conservation work in Namibia. Mr. Weaver has been the director of WWF’s Namibia program since 1993, providing guidance and assistance to Namibian partner organizations in the development of one of the world’s most highly regarded community conservation programs. During the discussion, Mr. Weaver shared four key ingredients to achieve positive conservation outcomes:

On April 29, 2014, the United Nations Security Council voted to lift a long-standing ban on diamond exports from Côte d’Ivoire. Ending the nine-year-old ban will encourage greater transparency in Côte d’Ivoire’s diamond sector and potentially move an estimated $12 to $23 million annually from the illicit diamond trade into the formal economy.

On June 18, the 2013 G8, under UK leadership, announced bold steps to strengthen land governance and improve transparency in land transactions. G8 leaders expressed support for and announced a series of concrete steps to accelerate implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines for the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries, and Forests in the Context of National Food Security and the African Union Land Policy Initiative (LPI).

As we noted in a commentary earlier this week, land tenure insecurity poses significant financial risks to investors. It also negatively impacts food security, economic growth, and natural resource management. Governments, multi-lateral organizations, donor agencies, and civil society are focusing greater attention on improving land tenure security. The private sector has also become increasingly cognizant of the financial risks of tenure insecurity and the importance of incorporating land tenure in strategic risk analysis.

USAID’s September/October 2012 Issue of FrontLines magazine features an article by Anthony Piaskowy titled Liberia’s Future Land Experts. The article highlights a USAID program that provides scholarships to five Liberian students to obtain Masters Degrees in Land Administration/Surveying. These students are gaining valuable skills in modern surveying techniques and, upon completion of their studies, will return to Liberia to work for the national government and assist the University of Monrovia develop a new curriculum in land surveying and administration.

Blog Entry in DipNote: The official US State Department Blog Site: 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.

By M. Mercedes Stickler, Land Tenure and Evaluation Specialist, USAID.
Last month, I had the opportunity to take part in the inaugural Conference on Land Policy in Africa. This event—organized by the Land Policy Initiative—highlighted the fact that land is one of the most important development issues facing Africa today.

A guest post by Robert Oberndorf, Resource Law Specialist, Tenure and Global Climate Change Project

On May 17, Liberian President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Ellen Johnson Sirleaf will discuss her administration’s goals, her perspective on land rights and land tenure security, and some of the challenges facing Liberia at a Thomson Reuters Newsmaker in Washington DC. A live stream of the event will be available at 2:30 p.m. EDT on May 17.

According to AllAfrica.com, Liberia’s Inquirer newspaper recently honored Philomena Bloh Sayeh as 2012 Director General of the Year. Ms. Sayeh is the Director General of Liberia’s Center for National Documents and Records Agency (CNDRA) and is a key partner in USAID’s Land Policy and Institutional Support (LPIS) project. This award recognizes the ambitious reform efforts that Ms. Sayeh, with the support of USAID, has overseen at CNDRA during the past year.

The U.S. Department of State, Bureau of International Information Programs, recently published an article that highlights the PRADD project. PRADD has operated in the Central African Republic since 2007 and assists the national government comply with the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme. The project goal is to increase the amount of alluvial diamonds entering the formal chain of custody while improving the benefits accruing to diamond miners and diamond mining communities. PRADD is managed by USAID’s Land Tenure and Property Rights Division in Washington.

The PRRGP chief of party, Mark Freudenberger, attended the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) in Tel Aviv, Israel from June 21-24, 2010.
Property Rights and Artisanal Diamond Development Project (PRADD) COP Attends Kimberley Process Certification Scheme