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- Land Resources - Land Management |
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STRENGTHENING PARTICIPATION OF RURAL COMMUNITIES IN POLICY-MAKING AND MANAGEMENT OF LAND-BASED RESOURCES: KELLOGG FOUNDATION
Strengthening of management structures of rural communities in southern Africa in relation to land and natural resources project evolved out of a methodology workshop convened by ORAM-Mozambique from 16-18 August 1999. In this workshop it was observed that rural communities are not empowered to address land and natural resource management problems besetting them. It was also observed that there are some common solutions to the varied problems that rural communities face in our region, these include:
 Provision of information on the general land reform programmes
Strengthening the abilities of communities to manage their local environments including
land and natural resources
Strengthening advocating capacities of rural communities
Partners in this project are the Community Internship Development Centre (CIDC) based in South Africa, ORAM from Mozambique, RIIC from Botswana, and the Zimbabwe Women's Bureau from Zimbabwe.
The year 2000 marks the first year of project implementation and already some exciting work with the rural communities has yielded positive results. Much work revolved around mobilising communities, simplifying land policies, disseminating the information and training communities on local level management systems. Through the PRA exercise with communities the following are the emergent issues.
Although the policy in South Africa allows for restitution of land rights to affected communities, the implementation mechanism has been ill defined resulting in lengthy and cumbersome procedures. In this regard the project focused on transferring land from the state to the residents of Platt Estate. Platt Estate is made up of five wards, which have their own development committees. These wards are Ematendeni, Thaphashiya, Ebholeni, Mnyanyabuzi and Emkhunya.
Participatory Appraisal exercises for Platt Estate began in March 2000. The first PRA focused on the problems being encountered in the transfer of land from the Department of Land Affairs to the residents of Platt Estate. The Department of Land Affairs (DLA) in South Africa is responsible for transferring land to communities. The meeting agreed that there was need to reformulate the Community Development Committee, as it was not representative of the five wards. It was also agreed that youth and women should be included on this committee. Discussions were also held on the procedures to be followed when transferring land from Government to the community.
The Government had pledged about R16 000 per household towards the provision of infrastructure and the surveying of sites. The community had also made arrangements for contribution towards provision of water and electricity and were uncertain whether or not the government would still provide the R16 000. The community also requested for training in building up their capacities to manage their environment, as the state would no longer play this role once the land was transferred. Training needs identification conducted by the CIDC then prioritised training in communal gardens, farming skills and the use and management of natural resources.
The PRAs in Mozambique identified the issue of conflicts as critical. It was observed that despite the law allowing communities the right of occupation even without formal title, communities have been disadvantaged through claims to land by former titleholders as well as through government practices of granting concessions on land belonging to communities. The communities often found themselves in a very weak position in the event of a conflict. It was agreed that the project should enable communities to understand the causes of conflict and how to address them by building community conflict management committees. This process was recently started and will be completed in 2001.
Regarding Botswana, the following three activities were deemed critical in the strengthening of community management of land and natural resources:
Information packaging,
Baseline studies, and
Information dissemination and dialogue with communities.
Much of the work in the year under review centered on collecting and packaging information related to policies and legislation governing land reform, natural resource conservation and utilization. A comprehensive report containing this information has been compiled and plans are underway to translate it into Setswana, the local language.
Analysis of the collected information provided the following specific issues that need to be looked at through dialogue with communities:
Community involvement in district land use plans formulation.
Mismanagement of grazing lands in communal areas.
Are action plans in place for Village development strategies?
Are there any land related conflicts and how are these being resolved at community level?
Are Land Boards serving the needs of communities? If not what is the problem?
How can communities organise themselves to obtain maximum benefits?
In Zimbabwe, the project focuses on strengthening community natural
resource management systems in resettlement areas, as these are the areas
with the weakest community management regimes. Participatory rural
appraisals and questionnaire surveys were conducted in two resettlement
areas, Masasa in Marondera District and Nyangoma in Karoi District.
Subsequent to these, an analysis of the gaps and constraints to natural
resource management was done. The failure by the communities to sustain
development initiatives was singled out as the most critical constraint.
Future work on the project will therefore explore ways of ensuring this
sustainability through the establishment of community trusts.
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Land