Summary of Year 4
In Year 4, ILRG completed several global pieces, including revisions to the capacity assessment framework, as well as desk-based products on the intersection between biodiversity, zoonosis, and carbon mitigation objectives and on migration and forest condition. Additional analyses are underway. ILRG has coordinated with the Integrated Natural Resource Management program (INRM) on Mobile Applications to Secure Tenure (MAST), as well as completed a Property Rights Index (Prindex) report that will be disseminated in the coming year. In addition, ILRG’s cross-cutting women’s economic empowerment work and communications and learning work consolidated global tools and learnings that will be shared throughout FY 2023.
In Mozambique during FY 2022, ILRG managed five service providers in two existing field activities and started four new activities with three service providers. While ILRG’s previous work focused on the delimitation of community lands and household parcels, particularly around an ingrower model and land relinquishment activity, efforts this year focused on gender and social inclusion (GESI) with the associations and grower groups and supporting their effective engagement with private sector partners. After significant negotiation with government, towards the end of the year ILRG was able to start on a land documentation and land use planning process associated with post-disaster resettlement. ILRG was actively involved in discussions with the National Directorate of Land about interpretation and implementation of the existing Land Law, while also submitting comments and proposed language to the National Land Commission for inclusion in the updated National Land Policy. Further, the terms of reference (ToR) for a study comparing CaVaTeCo and the government’s formal methodology for land titling were finalized with the Supporting the Policy Environment for Economic Development (SPEED) project and USAID/Mozambique and discussed with the National Directorate of Land. However, the National Director subsequently indicated that he was no longer interested in this study.
In Zambia, ILRG adapted to the election of a new administration and changes in leadership in most of its partner ministries. With respect to land rights, ILRG strengthened the formal role of the cooperating partners group, completed land documentation in four chiefdoms, and launched chiefdom land secretariats in two additional chiefdoms. ILRG also supported gender integration into Zambia’s National Land Titling Programme. In the wildlife sector, ILRG hosted a series of consultations leading to the redrafting of the Wildlife Act, as well as a new curriculum for community scouts. ILRG also shared its gender work, governance training tools, baseline monitoring and reporting tools, and land use planning experience with new USAID natural resource programs in Zambia. ILRG did not make significant progress in land use planning exercises in Eastern and Central Provinces due to long-standing conflict and distrust in each case. ILRG found significant interest in gender integration from conservation stakeholders through the roll-out of two women’s leadership and empowerment cohorts with mid-level conservation managers. Finally, ILRG continued its engagement with traditional leaders and the House of Chiefs through gender guidelines roll out and completion of a diploma in traditional leaders.
On the Indigenous Peoples portfolio, ILRG is partnering with USAID/Peru to support integration of Indigenous Peoples engagement in their portfolio and is working at the global level to develop an online training module on implementing a process for free, prior and informed consent (FPIC).
In Ghana, ILRG completed its collaboration on deforestation-free cocoa with Hershey and Ecom Agroindustrial Corp. (ECOM). ILRG carried out trainings to help communities resolve disputes over land management and ownership, which marked an end to the land governance work associated with land documentation. ILRG further completed the negotiations with partners over the delivery of a multi-year payment for ecosystem services (PES) initiative that the companies will implement together to support tree planting after the life of ILRG, registering 325 farmers to plant 8,000 seedlings this year. ILRG also finalized an analysis of tree tenure policy, which will be a focus of the project’s final event.
In India, through USAID’s partnership with PepsiCo, ILRG support for WEE in the potato value chain made progress this year despite major floods. Women demonstrated improved skills in potato cultivation, as well as increased brand loyalty to PepsiCo. ILRG engaged with supportive aggregators who often decide which farmers will be most involved in potato cultivation and worked with PepsiCo’s agronomists to build their confidence in working with women farmers. Importantly, ILRG found that PepsiCo staff are much more aware of the relevance of gender to their work following ILRG’s interventions to date. Despite floods and economic losses, women farmers expressed interest in continuing to work with PepsiCo. Over the coming year, ILRG will examine the full package of practices that has been trialed to inform PepsiCo’s potential adoption and integration into their work. ILRG shared lessons with the PepsiCo Global Development Alliance (GDA) team.
In Liberia, ILRG continued support to the community lands protection process through grants to Sustainable Development Institute and Green Advocates International, and engaged a third partner, Foundation for Community Initiatives. This will result in the land documentation of 44 communities with a total population of over 225,000 people over the life of ILRG.
In Malawi, ILRG partnered closely with government to document household land rights across an entire traditional land management area (TLMA), which resulted in the demarcation of almost 8,000 land parcels. The support will ultimately complete customary land documentation across the entire Mwansambo Traditional Authority’s (TA’s) 24 group village headpersons with the exception of leasehold lands within the TA, which are undergoing a review from government. Significant work was undertaken across the area to influence gender norms, as well as provide approaches to gender inclusion in the documentation process.
In Ghana, ILRG has partnered with ECOM to increase its capacity to empower women within the cocoa value chain in Ghana, building on ECOM’s role as one of the largest global cocoa suppliers to dozens of chocolate brands. ECOM hired a Gender and Sustainability Specialist who has led the completion of a GESI strategy for the company for 2023 – 2027, in addition to a series of training materials that have now been integrated across 21 districts in Ghana. ILRG has supported ECOM’s review of their training materials for GESI, as well as establishment of village savings and loans associations that have reached over 1,000 women.
In the minerals sector, ILRG supported RESOLVE, in its capacity as secretariat for the Public-Private Alliance for Responsible Mineral Trade (PPA), as the PPA envisioned its next generation iteration for 2022 – 2027, with increased geographic scope and additional minerals of interest. ILRG is also supporting the work of International Peace Information Service (IPIS) to map artisanal mine sites and document conflict financing in eastern DRC.
The ILRG Madagascar activity continued to contribute to the integration of tenure considerations in the Sambirano Valley into the Climate Resilient Cocoa Landscapes (CRCL) initiative, through support to the multi-stakeholder resource governance platform known as the Sambirano Watershed Management Committee (COGEBS). Work this year focused on training the COGEBS as well as providing feedback to government and COGEBS on a recently started mass land titling process.