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Context

The Ivory Coast is the largest cocoa producer in the world, and about 10% of GDP and 15% of government revenues are generated in this sector. However, as of July 2017, only 0.5% of the total agricultural land had a land certificate. At the same time, due to population growth the pressure on land increases. With a change of the forest law in 2015, the owners of land are also the owners of the trees planted on it. However, current land use contracts often remain informal and unclear.

In Colombia’s post-conflict context, access to land and tenure security are still a cause of many conflicts and inequalities. Especially Indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities are amongst the most vulnerable groups in Colombia. Their land tenure insecurity has a negative effect on the possibilities for livelihood improvements, and on the protection of natural resources within their territories.

The Enhancing Customary Justice Systems in the Mau Forest (Justice) Project piloted an approach for improving women’s access to customary justice, particularly related to women’s land rights, by enhancing the customary justice system in one target area. The work also resulted in a clearer understanding of the relationships between customary and statutory institutions and laws, and the development of a model to promote the integration of informal and formal justice systems.

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.

USAID’s Resilience and Economic Growth in the Sahel – Enhanced Resilience (REGIS-ER) program works to increase the resilience of chronically vulnerable people, households, communities and systems in targeted agro-pastoral and marginal agriculture livelihood zones in Niger and Burkina Faso. This will be achieved through three interwoven objectives: increased and sustainable well-being, strengthened institutions and governance, and improved nutrition and health. Each of these objectives constitutes a core component of the REGIS-ER program.

Globally, the impacts of climate change and society’s response are significantly affecting resource tenure governance, the rights of communities and people, and their livelihoods. In turn, resource tenure and property rights issues are widely recognized as crucial in the success of many climate change-related initiatives.

The C2P project aimed to support  the operationalization of private sector commitments to addressing land rights by working closely with  a leading private sector company, Illovo Sugar, to apply VGGT principles to company practice, including  and piloting the application of VGGT-based Analytical Framework for Due Diligence of Agricultural Land-based Investments in sub-Saharan Africa (AFDD) in three countries, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania.

The project secured collective land rights for surviving Hadzabe hunter–gatherer and Datoga pastoralist groups, and  improved  the governance of village lands in 11 neighbouring village areas in the Yaeda-Mangola area, east of Lake Eyasi, in Northern Tanzania, which forms an important wildlife and mobile human land use corridor.