General

Fostering women’s empowerment and access to political, legal, economic, and social rights is a core dimension of peacebuilding efforts. In Sierra Leone, land tenure and access to natural resources with economic exclusion lie at the heart of this debate. The complex land tenure and ownership system and unequal access to natural resources are among the primary causes of conflicts in Sierra Leone. Farmers – particularly women – operate in an informal and precarious system without sufficient legal safeguards. The project is time-sensitive, as the new Government has committed to the implementation of a long overdue land reform as well as a National Gender Strategy, both of which, on paper commit to non-discrimination and gender equality within an overhauled land tenure system. The project is innovative, being the only initiative in the country that combines the promotion of women’s land tenure security, economic empowerment, and peacebuilding, anchored on the implementation of land policy. The project will enhance women’s access to and control over land and at the same time strengthen their economic opportunities through business skills and knowledge, gender-sensitive financial products and ability to cooperate effectively. The project is also in line with the Government’s efforts to foster national cohesion, as dialogue will augment local conflict preventions and peaceful resolution of disputes, with the support of a network of trained insider mediators. The project relies on innovative methods in its implementation, including the use of an innovative geospatial technology “System for Open Land Administration (SOLA)” an Open Tenure software developed by FAO, with a gender-sensitive, community-based approach to record land rights and tenure relationships in the field, including rules on tenure dispute resolution. Improving the governance of tenure will require engaging a broad range of stakeholders with different and sometimes conflicting interests. Building on the existing wide consensus on the need to strengthen women’s empowerment and participation at all levels of society, as well as to sustain social cohesion by preventing escalation and political use of land conflicts. The project will serve as catalyst to mobilize local and national political will to engage powerful elites who benefit from weak tenure governance and in a system that engenders women’s exclusion.

General

It is now widely accepted that climate change has considerable consequences and creates conflicts between populations in both urban and rural areas. This makes the living conditions of communities, especially those of women and girls, even more difficult in a context where 81% of women are poor in rural areas compared to 69% of men. These conflicts cause security and development problems on an unprecedented scale, particularly for the CAR where the majority of population is female (50.2%) and depends on agriculture (the main source of income for 90% of households in rural areas), fisheries and livestock for the livelihoods of female-headed households. This Outcome aims to respond to the urgent problem of climate change that has long been a cause of conflicts in the Central African Republic with consequences for the resilience of women and girls, since most of them are farmers to see their fields destroyed without a legal response. They do not have control or land rights.

General

Mercy Corps and Search for Common Ground propose a 48-month intervention to improve the socioeconomic and security conditions of about 25,000 households (150,000 men, women, girls and boys) in North Kivu province, DRC. This goal will be achieved through considering all the market actors, systems and functions – as well as contributing contextual factors – that prevent smallholder farmers and small entrepreneurs (impact group) from increasing their incomes and their food security situation. Under Strategic Objective 1, the programme will bring the government and citizenry together to allow the target population to increasingly benefit from quality and accountable state services related to land use, agricultural production and markets. Under Strategic Objective 2, FARM will strengthen and diversify agricultural and non-agricultural livelihoods of target households through increasing their capacity to respond to market demand and ensuring that they sustainably access services and goods that are adapted to their needs from private and public market actors. The programme will be divided into a 6-month inception phase, followed by 2.5 years of extensive support to market actors through facilitative approaches, and one year dedicated to monitoring improved market exchanges and additional programme investments to achieve scale and sustainability. The programme will be implemented in 120 villages, selected across 5 Chefferies of the Goma Hinterland

Objectives

Outcome 1.1: Systemic constraints to land access, including conflict management systems, are inclusively improved. Outcome 1.2: Barriers to formal control of land are reduced, especially for women and youth. Outcome 2.1: Market actors from different communities collaborate to increase market access, especially for women and youth. Outcome 2.2: Market actors / institutions develop inclusive accessible by vulnerable chain actors Outcome 2.3: Joint-community planning and management improve natural resource use