The official launch workshop for the project to strengthen community land rights took place on August 30 and 31, at the Hotel Les Roches Rouges in Mahajanga.
The land tenure reform project is now effective thanks to the creation of a coalition and the strengthening of land rights. The goal is to improve forest management and strengthen community livelihoods in Madagascar. This regional workshop for sharing and official launch of the action was organized to facilitate a better understanding of the project. “The general objective of the workshop is to share information between actors on the project of creating a coalition and building the capacity of civil society organizations to participate in the process of drafting legal texts on human rights. community land. »
The main outcomes expected from the workshop can be summarized as the importance of securing community land rights. In the Boeny region, in particular, it was presented and apprehended by the participants. The latter also share a common vision of the purpose and objectives of the Project, of their respective roles and responsibilities.
“At least 50% of the forest area in low- and middle-income countries is owned or intended for use by indigenous peoples, local communities of African descent by 2030. These peoples, these communities of African descent and women within these groups have recognized rights to manage, conserve, use and trade forest products and services in 100% of the area under their ownership or designated use by 2030,” explains Jean Ousman Camara, coordinator of Rights Resources Initiative (RRI).
Securing
Madagascar has initiated, since 2005, a reform of its land policy, the objective of which is to meet the massive demand for land tenure security, in a short time and at costs adjusted to the economic context, by formalizing rights unwritten land rights and by safeguarding and regularizing written land rights. This is how the Malagasy government relied on the provisions of this framework document to initiate a national dialogue aimed, among other things, at integrating community land rights into the land reform process.
To ensure the full, effective and active participation of civil society in this process, the German government through GIZ has provided the RRI Coalition with funding to facilitate coalition building and information sharing. experiences between civil society organizations. A succession of presentations followed by exchanges/debates in the form of clarifications and contributions took place during the first day of sharing between the actors implementing the project’s conceptual framework.
Civil society organizations from the intervention area located in four target communes (Betsako, Marovoay-banlieue, Ankijabe, Manerinerina) of the Boeny region participated in the workshop as well as the local authorities of the four target communes, representatives platform, Solidarity, NGO Saha, PropFr, GIZ, CFM, SIF and many others also attended these two days.