General

The Land and Rural Development Program began in July 2013 and is a five-year task order under the Strengthening Tenure and Resource Rights Indefinite Quantity Contract. The program helps the Government of Colombia improve its ability to resolve the many complicated land issues that have plagued the country for years and that must be resolved to achieve a lasting peace. Objectives Improved capacity of the GOC at the regional and national levels to restitute lands to victims of conflict (Restitution Component); Improved capacity of regional and national GOC institutions to formalize rural property rights and to allocate public lands (baldíos) (Formalization Component); Improved capacity of regional and national government entities to mobilize and execute public resources for rural public goods (Rural Development Component); and Improved information available and efficiently used to deliver land rights services (Information Sharing and Management Component). After four years of intense negotiations in Havana, Cuba, between the GOC and the FARC, both parties signed a peace accord in the final months of 2016 with the intent of ending more than 50 years of civil war. Although several controversies swirled around the final terms of the agreement, they did not center on the agreement’s commitments to strengthen land tenure security and rural livelihoods, giving the program significant latitude to continue collaborating with the GOC to facilitate land restitution, strengthen smallholder land rights, and mobilize the provision of public goods and services in historically neglected rural areas—and thereby create the conditions for sustaining peace. Expected Outcomes Adapting to an ever-changing sociopolitical environment to effectively engage new government institutions and new local government authorities. Defining and promoting the adoption of international best practices for implementing quick, efficient, scalable land formalization activities to ensure that citizens have secure land tenure on paper and in practice. Developing methods for protecting land from being irregularly acquired and for identifying abandoned, illegally adjudicated, or stolen land, so as to create a reserve of land that can be provided to victims of conflict. Accelerating the processing of restitution claims, ensuring that the interests of good-faith secondary occupants are protected, and ensuring that local governments are equipped to comply with restitution rulings. Identifying and tackling constraints to efficiently move national-level government funding into rural areas to increase access of rural communities to public goods, services, and markets. Identifying and proposing solutions to specific land tenure access problems faced by women and ethnic minorities. Partnering across government institutions in the design, establishment, and maintenance of land-related knowledge management systems that will allow all public agencies to share information in real time, reducing the time associated with land-related transactions. Strengthening coordination among USAID implementing partners in the regions where we work to maximize efficiencies and reduce the duplication of efforts. The program works at the national level and in 57 municipalities from five focus regions: Cauca, Cesar, Meta, Montes de María, and Tolima. For more information about the Land and Rural Development Program, visit http://ColombiaLRDP.org

General

Achieving long-term food security while protecting biodiversity and other ecosystem services will require: sustainable intensification of production on existing lands, restoration of degraded lands, and converting to agriculture only those lands where potential production is high, while degradation risk is low. To meet these requirements, knowledge and information about how land potential varies at field to regional scales is needed. However, existing knowledge and information about land potential is poorly integrated and unavailable at the scale of small farms where it is most urgently needed. The Land-Potential Knowledge System (LandPKS) aims to increase access to global and local land potential knowledge. The program is developing innovative mobile data collection, analysis methods, and tools to be used by farmers, pastoralists, governments, and development workers to sustainably increase agricultural production, biodiversity conservation, and improve climate change adaptation efforts and other ecosystem services. LandPKS uses mobile phone and cloud computing technologies to: Globalize access to local and scientific knowledge and information about land potential, Identify and deliver the knowledge and information relevant to each type of land/soil to anyone with a mobile phone, and Connect people with similar types of lands and challenges with each other to share learning and experiences. Through an interagency agreement issued from USAID, USDA’s Agricultural Research Service is developing LandPKS as a platform to allow others to use as the foundation for developing apps to address more specific information needs. The suite of mobile phone applications is currently being tested as a pilot in Kenya and Namibia, and the first application will be released to the global public in April or May 2015. Objective Support long-term, sustainable increases in productivity and biodiversity conservation through improved land-use planning and better land management Expected Outcomes Local and scientific knowledge about the potential productivity, biodiversity, and resilience of specific types of land for local, regional, and global application will be collected, shared, and integrated Governments, farmers, and pastoralists will have greater access to local and scientific knowledge from all over the world that is relevant to specific types of land Innovation will be promoted through peer-to-peer learning Gender equality will be increased by providing women farmers improved access to knowledge and information For more information about LandPKS, visit: http://landpotential.org

General

The Sudan Rural Land and Governance (SRLG) project is a follow-on project to the Sudan Property Rights Program (SPRP), which assisted the Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS) to develop a draft land policy based on extensive public consultation and research, as well as provided support to build the capacity of the South Sudan Land Commission (SSLC). The Sudan Rural Land and Governance project helps to harmonize the land policy with the 2009 Land Act, supports two selected States and two Counties governments for more effective land administration and planning. The goal of this project is to define and establish rural land governance institutions and processes so as to promote property rights, encourage sound land use management, mitigate conflict, reduce the potential for rural landowners to be divested of their land, and to encourage broad based participation in future land allocation, management, and investment decisions.

Objectives