Project Overview
The project’s main objective is to accelerate the implementation of innovative measures contained in the new land policy, for decentralised and peaceful management of natural resources. The project specifically aims to:
1. Strengthen village land commissions’ operability.
2. Demonstrate how collective rights can be recognised and implemented in a pilot intercommunal forest, and through agreements between communities on social and environmental commitments.
3. Host a strategic dialogue space on the implementation of the agricultural tenure policy and law.
The project will also address the urgent need to resolve longstanding conflict over land by pioneering, testing, and demonstrating scalable approaches and tools that rural municipalities and local communities can use to resolve conflicts among themselves and with other actors. It will set the stage for scaling the success of village land commissions (COFO) across the country by supporting and learning from the experiences of COFO in the south. In later stages, the project’s lessons learnt could be applied to areas where conflict is more prevalent and widespread, particularly in the north of Mali. Finally, the project will build trusting and collaborative relationships between communities, the government, civil society, and the private sector that show the way forward in a post-conflict environment.
Impact:
The project now completed supported members of village land commissions with training on their roles and responsibilities as well as on the elaboration of land transaction tools that make it possible to secure land tenure rights of local communities. COFO also held information and awareness-raising meetings on the opportunities they offer.
Additionally, the project established other municipal and village level COFO in cooperation with the technical services, local communities, partnering NGOs, and farmers’ organisations important for social cohesion. At every site, local practices and customs were compiled to serve as the basis for disputes mediation.
Every COFO at village and municipality level developed an action plan, which the project contributed to implementing. During the project, dialogues were held with decision-makers to inform them about the benefits of introducing COFO in villages and about the importance of tenure policy and rights.
