Hosted by the LAC Environment Combating Conservation Crime Learning Group, this event spotlighted ASGM in Peru and approaches to address its drivers and impacts, from improving governance to environmental remediation.
The USAID Integrated Land and Resource Governance (ILRG) Annual Research Symposium will showcase academic research and field experience in Zambia related to land tenure and natural resource management over the course of four weeks (Wednesdays and Thursdays from 13:00 – 15:00 CAT). The presentations with Q & A will be entirely virtual through the Zoom platform (assistance with Internet connection is available.)
Registration for the symposium is now open. Registration is not required to view the symposium but is requested in order to participate in the discussion.
Each week 4-5 presentations + discussion will focus on the following thematic issues:
The opening session is Tuesday, October 6 at 13:00 CAT (7:00 ET). You can join this session and all subsequent symposium sessions by clicking the link below:
Click Here to Join the Event
Zambia is rich in natural resources, with vast forests, wetlands, and diverse wildlife populations. Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) is central to conservation and rural development in Zambia, in seeking to generate incentives and greater economic value for local communities from forests and wildlife. Important changes have taken place in Zambia in recent years, including the passage of the 2015 Forests Act, which provides new mechanisms for community forest management and is spurring establishment of community forests in different parts of the country. Policy reforms and field-level experiments are also creating potential opportunities in wildlife management and conservation approaches.
This webinar will provide an opportunity to learn about policy and legal reforms, and innovative efforts in the field, to advance CBNRM in Zambia. It will share findings from a new review produced by Maliasili and the USAID-funded Integrated Land and Resource Governance (ILRG) program, in collaboration with The Nature Conservancy Africa Program. Speakers will include representatives from key government agencies and civil society organizations working on CBNRM in Zambia, including those implementing CBNRM in the field and working on policy reforms.
Forestry Department
Patricia Mupeta-Muyamwa
The Nature Conservancy Africa Program
Jassiel Msoka
USAID
Rodgers Lubilo
Frankfurt Zoological Society
Hassan Sachedina
BioCarbon Partners (TBC)
Bupe Banda
Zambia National Community Resources
Boards Association
Fred Nelson
Maliasili
Ian Robinson
Wildlife Producers Association of Zambia
Join IUCN, USAID, and other partners for the first in a series of webinars and presenting AGENT research and key findings on linkages related to:
And introducing the grantees of RISE , USAID’s global challenge to address these linkages.
Gender-based violence (GBV) is pervasive across sectors, countries, and communities. Both a symptom of gender inequality and a means for keeping it intact, GBV impedes progress toward gender equality and acts as a barrier to meeting conservation and sustainable development goals.
Viewed nearly 10,000 times in its first three months online and covered by more than 60 media articles so far, Gender-based Violence and Environment Linkages: The Violence of Inequality (IUCN, 2020) brought together evidence and analysis from across environment-related sectors and contexts to better understand GBV in relation to natural resource access and control and environmental degradation and stressors. A webinar series will present and discuss key findings, across issues and sectors, toward improved coordinated strategies and results.
Advancing Gender in the Environment (AGENT) is a ten-year Public International Organization (PIO) grant to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) that was established in 2014 and is managed by the Bureau for Economic Growth, Education and Environment’s (E3) Office of Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment. The purpose of the grant is to increase the effectiveness of USAID’s environment programming through the robust integration of gender considerations, improving gender equality and women’s empowerment outcomes in a broad range of environmental sectors. AGENT provides an array of support for national, regional and global environmental activities to advance women’s empowerment and gender equality. AGENT’s support is designed to complement existing or emerging USAID environmental efforts. AGENT broadens the reach of technical support, builds evidence for gender integration throughout environmental sectors, fills critical information gaps, and develops targeted resources and tools that can be directly applied in Agency programs, training, and communications.
The information provided in this email is not official U.S. Government information and does not represent the views or positions of the U.S. Agency for International Development or the U.S. Government.
In this webinar, USAID and development experts discussed on gender-related opportunities and constraints in ASM, with a focus on strategies for transforming gender biases in the sector, and ensuring that women and men have equal access to economic empowerment through ASM-related value chains.
The artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) sector offers critical economic opportunities for women as well as a unique set of challenges. Women work at all levels of the ASM value chain, from pit labor to international trading and represent 30-50 percent of the global workforce for ASM. The most lucrative opportunities related to ASM, however, fall largely to men. Women often work longer hours for less money, lack rights to important production assets, such as land, licensing and capital, and are more exposed to social and environmental risks, including gender-based violence.
Jeffrey Haeni, Acting Deputy Assistant Administrator, USAID
Jeffrey Haeni is the Acting Deputy Assistant Administrator in the Bureau for Economic Growth, Education and Environment (E3), where he oversees the Energy and Infrastructure, Forest and Biodiversity, Land and Urban, and Global Climate Change Offices.
Kimberly Thompson, Natural Resource Governance and Conflict Advisor, USAID E3/Land Team
Kim Thompson is a Natural Resource Governance and Conflict Advisor for the E3/Land and Urban Office. She is a career foreign service officer and leads USAID’s work on artisanal and small scale mining.
Joanne Lebert, Executive Director, IMPACT. Ms. Lebert leads IMPACT’s work to improve how natural resources are managed where security and human rights are at risk. Her work has focused on contributing to responsibly-sourced, conflict-free minerals and she has helped Central African governments launch and implement a regional strategy to tackle conflict minerals.
Jocelyn Kelly, Director, Gender, Rights, and Resilience, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI). Ms. Kelly is the founding director for HHI’s Women in War program, and currently is a fellow at HHI where she designs and implements projects to examine issues relating to gender, peace, and security in fragile states.
Nathalia Rocio Mendoza Baron, Gender Coordinator, Alliance for Responsible Mining (ARM). Ms. Mendoza is a political scientist and internationalist, coordinator. She leads gender mainstreaming into the projects and processes of the ARM. Previously she worked on promoting women’s rights through gender mainstreaming with the government of Bogotá.
Sound management of natural resources is integral to a country’s development, resilience, and self-reliance. By promoting development that benefits both nature and people, biodiversity conservation activities can strengthen development impact and the capacity of countries to manage their natural resources, improving their self-reliance.
The Wilson Center’s Environmental Change & Security Program, in partnership with USAID’s USAID’s Biodiversity Results and Integrated Development Gains Enhanced (BRIDGE) project, held a three-part virtual series with researchers and practitioners discussing lessons learned and entry points for action in the integration of biodiversity conservation, governance, public health, and food security.
There are strong linkages between good governance and biodiversity conservation. Better governance, conservation and natural resource management all focus on improving the collective good. Similarly, good governance and biodiversity conservation require the participation of local communities in decision making and management. Where governance institutions are seen as legitimate, transparent and effective, people are much more likely to follow the rules and regulations that the institutions set. Further, combining collective action, natural resource management and good governance can provide incentives to individuals and groups to manage natural resources in more sustainable ways. Good governance is thus a linchpin of biodiversity conservation. Examples of programming interventions include improved marine biodiversity conservation through community participation in co-management; increased prosecution of environmental crime through investments in judicial systems; or enhanced integrity of forested landscapes through investments in indigenous land tenure systems.
Building Bridges: Governance, Natural Resource Management, and “Thinking and Working Politically”
Follow the link above to view the webcast recording.
Moderated by Derick Brinkerhoff, Distinguished Fellow Emeritus, RTI International with an introduction by Kyle Rearick, Forestry and Biodiversity Advisor, U.S. Agency for International Development.
Panel Speakers:
Governance, Natural Resource Management, and “Thinking and Working Politically” is the second panel in a three-part “Building Bridges” virtual series to hear from researchers and practitioners on lessons learned and entry points for action in the integration of biodiversity conservation, governance, public health, and food security.
For the past five years, BRIDGE has supported the second goal of USAID’s Biodiversity Policy, to “integrate biodiversity as an essential component of human development.” BRIDGE collaborates with USAID missions and regional and technical bureaus to identify and promote integrated programming approaches and contribute to the evidence base for integration.
The Environmental Change and Security Program (ECSP) explores the connections between environmental, health, and population dynamics and their links to conflict, human insecurity, and foreign policy.
Time: 10-11 AM EST
Presenter: Hosaena Ghebru, Research Fellow, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
Moderator: Frank Place, Director, PIM
Organizer: CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM)
Access to land and land tenure security are increasingly important for young people in Africa where population pressure has reduced the land frontier. In this webinar, we will discuss findings from a recent set of studies in Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, and Nigeria that examined land access and perceived tenure security across various market, ecological, demographic, and cultural dynamics. A key finding is that, despite positive policy reforms at the national level, implementation has been weak and uneven within countries. As a result, land rights of the most vulnerable groups – poor smallholders, women, and migrants – have often eroded under the pressures of growing population, commercialization of agriculture, and commodification of land. These groups are particularly vulnerable since their rights over land are often subsidiary and undocumented.
The lack of proper enforcement and implementation of the reform process, mainly due to the lack of financial and technical capacity, as well as rent-seeking and corruption, continue to undermine the position of vulnerable groups in sub-Saharan Africa vis-à-vis land. The results of the studies emphasize the need for more pragmatic and endogenous policy reform processes, which account for the local administrative capacities, to ensure the sustainability of programs and interventions. The presentation concludes with a discussion of how the research teams are feeding their findings into ongoing policy discussions.
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Hosaena Ghebru (Ph.D) is Research Fellow at the Development and Governance Division of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). Dr. Ghebru undertakes applied microeconomics research with a focus on property rights, land markets, and investment incentives. He is also specializing in gender-disaggregated impact evaluations of various land policy and governance reforms, assessing how those influence agricultural productivity and contribute to sustainable land management and intra-household welfare and bargaining power in selected African countries, including Nigeria, Mozambique, Ghana, Ethiopia, and Uganda. Dr. Ghebru is also coordinator of the “Monitoring and Evaluation of Land governance in Africa” (MELA) project, a pilot initiative designed to track progress in implementation of the African Union’s Declaration on Land Issues and Challenges in 10 selected African countries (Cote d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Madagascar, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia).
The USAID Land and Urban Office hosted a webinar on the latest results and developments from an exciting USAID initiative, Mobile Applications to Secure Tenure (MAST). MAST combines an on-the-ground training and participatory approach with mobile applications and technology platforms. MAST has already been used in Burkina Faso, Tanzania, Zambia and now Liberia to register more than 50,000 parcels, with promising results on women’s empowerment, economic growth, and improved resource management.
In this webinar, Jeffrey Euwema, the Chief of Party from USAID’s Land Technology Solutions (LTS) program, described and discussed recent MAST success stories and lessons from Burkina Faso, Tanzania, and Liberia. Please view the recording below.
Presenter: Jeffrey Euwema, Chief of Party, USAID’s Land Technology Solution Program
Mr. Jeffrey Euwema has worked for over 24 years as a field and home office-based project manager on international development projects, primarily focused on issues pertaining to land administration, land information management, and sustainability planning. Mr. Euwema has developed specifications for an integrated land technology platform for land documentation (Mobile Applications to Secure Tenure) and established a participatory implementation framework for its successful adaptation in rural Tanzania, Burkina Faso, and Liberia.
Blog: What’s new with MAST?MAST leverages innovative methods and tools to engage citizens in inclusive approaches that increase efficiencies over time.
Photo Essay: Her Land Rights Without documented property rights, widows can’t buy or sell their land, nor can they obtain access to bank loans. But with USAID’s help, Asiah was able to find a solution.
Videos: Promoting Land Tenure and Property Rights in Zambia In Zambia, USAID supported the Chipata District Land Alliance in using Mobile Applications to Secure Tenure (MAST) to pilot tenure strengthening activities in over 130 villages in four chiefdoms in Chipata District.
Resource Library: Mobile Applications to Secure Tenure (MAST) Learning Platform MAST helps communities define, map, record, and document their land and resources. MAST provides easy-to-use mobile phone applications that empower citizens in the process of understanding their rights and documenting their land and resources.
On April 5, 2018, USAID LandLinks, Marketlinks and Agrilinks hosted an online, interactive presentation of the results from the recent, voluntary Investor Survey on Land Rights, which was conducted from October 2017 to February 2018.
Until now, information related to land tenure and resource rights primarily focused on cataloging information related to the geographic area under various forms of tenure or the location and size of land transactions, while project-level information and investor perceptions were missing. The Investor Survey on Land Rights fills the gap by reporting on private sector perceptions of land tenure risks and their strategies to address them.
This webinar shared results from the survey and provided evidence that investors quantitatively and qualitatively account for land risks in their investment decisions and actively work to mitigate potential land risks, and that when land risks materialize, there can be large financial impacts. The webinar also looked at successful business models that have been deployed to reduce risks for investors and provide benefits to local communities, also highlighted in the survey and report.
Jeffrey Hatcher of Indufor North America, presented and discussed the survey findings, and Finn Jacobsen of African Plantations for Sustainable Development (APSD) and Oriane Plédran of The Moringa Partnership discussed their live investment projects that seek to create benefits for their shareholders and local communities alike. The panel discussion was moderated by USAID’s Sarah Lowery.
Topics covered in the presentation of findings may include:
Thursday, April 5, 2018
8:00 – 9:00 am EDT
Jeffrey HatcherJeffrey Hatcher is the Managing Director of Indufor North America, which provides sustainability and investment consulting services to public and private clients. He previously served as Director of Global Programs for the Rights and Resources Group where he led analytical projects on forest tenure policies, climate change, and investment risks. He began his career at the FAO Emergency and Land Tenure services in Sudan supporting the implementation of the land policy provisions of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and land restitution for internally displaced people. He holds an MBA with a focus on finance from INSEAD, an MA in Development Studies from the University of Pavia, and a BA in International Relations from the College of William and Mary.
Finn JacobsenFinn Jacobsen, CEO of African Plantations for Sustainable Development (APSD), has worked in the pulp and paper industry worldwide. APSD was incorporated by Erling S. Lorentzen with the aim to promote and facilitate sustainable forestry-based industrial investments in Africa. Since 2010, Mr. Jacobsen and Mr. Lorentzen have been developing eucalyptus plantations and a power generation facility near Atebubu, on the western shores of Lake Volta in central Ghana.
Oriane PlédranSince 2014, Ms. Plédran has worked on outgrower scheme development to include local communities into agri-business development and enhance positive social and environmental impacts. She specializes in agroforestry projects, ESG risk and impact analysis. She gained strong field experience in Nicaragua and Peru – where she performed socio-economic analysis of coffee and cocoa farmers – in Cameroon and India. Ms. Plédran graduated in International Affairs at Sciences Po Lyon and in Development Economics and Sustainable Development at CERDI, the French Research Centre dedicated to International Development. She is now a PhD Candidate at Sorbonne Paris Citeì (Paris Diderot) in Economics, co- directed by researchers from IRD and CIRAD. She focuses on the advancement of agroforestry practices through integration strategies and contract farming – in cocoa and coffee value chains.
Sarah LoweryMs. Lowery leads the Land and Urban Office’s work on integrated finance for sustainable land use and responsible private sector investment. She focuses on the link between secure land tenure, increased investments and inclusive economic growth. Prior to joining USAID, Ms. Lowery managed the Public-Private Co-Finance Initiative at Forest Trends and has authored several papers and thought-pieces on climate finance innovations like REDD+ bonds and ways to utilize climate finance to unlock larger pools of capital-like domestic agricultural finance in the pursuit of conservation goals. Ms. Lowery holds an MBA and a master’s degree in Environmental Management from Yale University.
Join USAID LandLinks and a panel of experts, for an interactive online discussion on Mangrove Forest Restoration and Management: Social and Governance Dimensions, Thursday, February 15, 2018, starting at 9:00 am EST.
Mangrove activities have primarily focused around the biophysical and ecological dimensions of mangrove planting and protection; while the social dimensions of mangrove restoration, including governance and tenure arrangements, have largely been left on the margins. This webinar will open the conversation about the preconditions that are necessary to successful mangrove management, and provide a learning space that encourages broad participation and discussion between USAID missions, implementing partners and the global community of mangrove experts.
Hear perspectives on these important #landmatters from mangrove experts in the field, including:
Thursday, February 15, 2018
9:00-10:30am EST
Register / Join Now
Stephen Brooks, Land Tenure and Resource Governance Advisor, USAID E3/Land and Urban Office
Esther Mwangi (CIFOR); Nayna Jhaveri (USAID-funded TGCC project); Dr. Steve Dennison (USFS Coastal Sustainable Landscapes Project); Dr. Salomao Bandeira, Olanda Bata and Casimiro Antonio (USAID-funded Coastal City Adaptation Project).