A National Dialogue on Securing Community Land Rights was held from August 5-9th in Toliara.
It is an initiative of the Ministry of Plan Use Planning, Housing and Public Works, through the Unit for Coordination and Monitoring of Land Reform and the Directorate General of Land Services, in collaboration with the Solidarité des Intervenants sur le Foncier- Solidarity of the Interveners on the land (SIF) and the network of natural resource management communities,Tafo Mihaavo.
The USAID Hay Tao programme, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Global Environment Facility through the Small Grants for Environmental Projects Program (GEF / SGP) and the Agricultural Growth and Securitisation Organisation "CASEF" supported this national effort to secure the land rights of communities.
This dialogue is part of the enactment of Madagascar's commitment to implement a land security process targeting particularly local communities, women and indigenous peoples following two regional workshops, the first one in Accra, Ghana in 2017 and the second very recently in Antananarivo in Madagascar in May 2019.
The objectives are to produce with all the actors involved, including the Civil Society Platform working in Malagasy land and the network of natural resource management communities, a roadmap for drafting the legal framework for specific land areas and to define, in a participatory and inclusive way, the way in which the recommendations are executed and the implementation of the priorities defined for securing community land rights in Madagascar.
These recommendations include strengthening tenure security for women, youth and vulnerable groups, empowering communities in land management, and supporting the financing of community land rights securing operations by local community states.
The first two days of this national dialogue were also marked by the common definition of the community in relation to land ownership and the meeting with the Mikea community in the Bedo and Vorehe localities of Basibasy community in the South West of the Big Island. The exchanges focused on the living conditions, the culture and the values of the community, the aspects related to land occupations as well as on the main issues and the different local expectations in terms of land security.
By the end of the national dialogue, the modalities for implementing regional dialogues on the same theme, financing modalities for the process of securing community land rights, alternative measures for resolving land disputes and an update on the legal framework on areas with specific status were discussed during this national dialogue.
______________________________________________________________________________________
This press release was produced following the national dialogue on securing community land rights. ILC supports the process via the National Engagement Strategy in Madagascar.
Files: Communique de presse_SIF/ILC