Programme Area 4: Regional Dialogue on Land Governance

Outcome 4.1. The IGAD regional CSO forum facilitated and functional

The IGAD secretariat will strengthen and broaden its existing regional dialogue platforms to include a CSO forum that will convene periodic events to enhance experience sharing, lesson learning and dissemination of best practices. The platform will offer opportunity for engagement with civil society groups including land policy advocates, farmers/pastoral organisations, research and academia and private sector.

Outcome4.2. Engage with the private sector to ensure their effective participation at the regional dialogues

In addition to strengthening CSO participation in regional dialogues, the business plan will also boost participation by a wide range of stakeholders from the private sector including real estate dealers, financial sector operators and land-based business interests. Their capacity to engage in the regional dialogues will be enhanced to ensure meaningful participation.

Outcome 4.3 Build communities of practice in the different areas of land governance

It is pertinent that communities of practice are developed if IGAD is to ensure knowledge transfer and skills enhancement through the sharing of knowledge, lessons learnt and upscaling of best practices across countries in the region. These should be multi-stakeholder in nature. The key communities of practice that are of interest to improved land governance in the region are – Land monitoring, Land use planning, surveying and documentation of land rights, valuation and taxation, urban development, women’s land rights and pastoralist lands management. The communities of practice will enhance the implementation of the AU Declaration on Land Issues and Challenges, the VGGT as well as the SDGs in the IGAD region.

Outcome 4.4 Work with the Research and Training Institutions to ensure that knew knowledge generated is disseminated and informs the regional dialogues

Grants provided to research and training institutions would include earmarked funds for dissemination of research findings. Emphasis would be given to disseminating them in regional dialogues. Furthermore, the IGAD Land Governance Portal is a powerful online tool and data hub that can foster dialogue on new knowledge, as well as provide real time dissemination of information to the IGAD Member States.

Outcome 4.5 The visibility of land governance in IGAD region through knowledge management enhanced.

The IGAD Land Governance Portal was developed in phase 1 of the project, with the aim of creating an online knowledge management platform. This platform aims at improving the availability of land governance information in the IGAD region it involves the documentation, mapping and monitoring of land governance issues in IGAD Member States.

For Phase 2, it is envisaged that the IGAD Land governance Portal will promote, inform and enrich regional debate, learning and sharing of best practices on land governance developments of interest to the IGAD Region. It will also be used as an awareness raising platform on land policy development, implementation and monitoring for the IGAD region on selected thematic areas of central importance to land governance.  It will provide tools and approaches that could be replicated in Member States.

Outcome 4.6 Development partners collaborating on the emerging land governance initiatives in IGAD and its Member States

IGAD will develop and implement a strategy to engage development partners to participate actively in land governance initiatives at regional and member state levels by contributing funds and engaging in dialogues at regional and member state levels. Ministers of Finance of IGAD member states should also be engaged along with development partners to maximize opportunities for resource mobilization.