On December 15th, USAID and the Afghanistan Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MOWA) launched a nationwide public information and awareness campaign about Afghan women’s rights to inherit and own land and property. The campaign is part of USAID’s Land Reform in Afghanistan (LARA) which works with the Government of Afghanistan to build the local capacity necessary to design and implement transparent, effective land tenure reform.
A recent paper from the Global Canopy Programme, "Land tenure and fast-tracking REDD+: time to reframe the debate?" rightly points out that legally defensible and enforceable land rights are an essential condition for effective, equitable implementation of REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation plus augmentation of carbon stocks). The authors assert that clear land tenure and usage rights determine who should be compensated for reducing deforestation or held accountable for continuing it.
Guest commentary by Amanda Richardson, Resource Equity, and Ailey Kaiser Hughes, Landesa.
A growing body of evidence shows a correlation between gender-based violence (GBV) and land rights. Awareness of the possible GBV implications of land interventions is critical to understanding impacts on women.
Tim Fella, Land Tenure and Conflict Advisor - USAID, moderating the panel discussion.
Participatory mapping workshop in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, September 13 -15, 2011. Photo credit: Tetra Tech / Gary Hunter and Anna Soave
This month, we are highlighting participatory approaches that make land tenure programming more inclusive, effective, and sustainable. USAID uses participatory approaches—approaches that engage local communities and beneficiaries in project design and management—in our efforts to secure and strengthen land tenure and property rights in projects around the world.
Guest commentary by Matt Sommerville, Chief of Party for USAID Tenure and Global Climate Change (TGCC) project.
Tenure and New York Declaration on Forests
A guest post by Bholanath Chakladar, a District Project Manager for Landesa India in West Bengal. This post originally appeared on Landesa's Field Focus Blog.
Last week, 55,339 destitute families across West Bengal received legal title to a micro-plot of land. The state of West Bengal, in partnership with Landesa, has been on the forefront of addressing extreme rural poverty through providing poor, landless, rural families with a small plot of land where they can live and grow food. Thus far, West Bengal has provided more than 160,000 landless families with micro-plots.
Guest commentary by Dr. Cynthia M. Caron, Assistant Professor of International Development and Social Change, Clark University.
USAID welcomes The Coca-Cola Company’s recently announced commitments to ensure that its sugar suppliers protect the land rights of local communities. Coca-Cola - the world’s largest purchaser of sugar - agreed to revise its corporate Supplier Guiding Principles to incorporate principles that recognize and safeguard local communities’ and indigenous peoples’ rights to land and natural resources.
Land tenure impacts investment, credit availability, poverty rates, land values, and agricultural productivity, which are all linked to economic performance. When land tenure and property rights are secure, individuals can make investments, secure credit, sell land, and make longer term decisions about agricultural practices. On the other hand, in developing countries that have a large informal sector, and in which land tenure is insecure, people lack opportunities to invest in or profit from land, and their transactions are not protected by the state.
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