By Jimmy Gaudin (Technical Analyst - Land Tenure Desk PMI), Fiona Flintan (Technical Specialist – ILRI), Bernard Baha (TALA Coordinator & NES Facilitator Tanzania), Juma Mwatima (Senior Country Programme Officer - IFAD Tanzania)
![]()
Photo credit: Jimmy Gaudin 2019
During the past years, the collaboration between international organizations, civil society organisations, and governments has led to substantial progress in improving tenure security for rural populations. Aware of the added value that multi-stakeholder partnerships can generate, and after having substantial results on their own, the International Land Coalition (ILC) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) understand the potential in developing their collaboration to deliver effective policies and programs for more sustainable impacts. For instance, ILC Members, platforms and initiatives offer an opportunity to support IFAD national policy engagement. Conversely, IFAD's programmatic operations at country level allow ILC members to partake in project implementation and policy dialogue. Hence, developing these comparative advantages and their complementarity is the first step to laying the ground for an enduring and fruitful collaboration.
A successful example of a multi-stakeholder partnership is the Sustainable Rangeland Management Project (SRMP), co-funded by IFAD, Belgian Fund for Food Security, Irish Aid and others. It has proved to be a strong multi-stakeholder partnership of donors, international agencies, national and local government, research institutes, international and national NGOs, and local communities.
In its first phase between 2010 and 2015, this partnership through SRMP assisted nine villages in Tanzania to carry out village land use planning (VLUP), and successfully piloted the implementation of a joint village planning across three of these, in Kiteto district, Manyara region in order to protect key shared grazing and other resources for village. Livestock keepers. Though supported by policy and legislation, such an intervention had not been implemented due to lack of capacity and funding. In its second phase (2016–2020) the joint village land use planning approach has been replicated in three new clusters of villages in Kiteto, the process started in a new district Chalinze, and kick-started the upscaling of the approach by national government. Not only was planning carried out but the first-ever Group Certificates of Customary Rights of Occupancy (CCROs) was issued to livestock keepers associations. (LKAs) for their grazing land. At the same time the Project has built capacity in such as conflict resolution, gender mainstreaming, and participatory rangeland management.
The SRMP contributed to the ILC’s Tanzania National Engagement Strategy (NES) as part of a larger program on inclusive land governance. Within the NES Tanzania, the rangelands working group (RWG) was established to take forward engagement on rangelands at the national level. ILRI and other members of this group supported this national engagement by covering costs of some RWG meetings and facilitating the development of national statement on rangelands by CSOs, among others. A second working group on land-based investments was also established. The RWG is composed of key stakeholders including representatives from government, multilateral organizations, and international and national NGOs. This diverse constituency provided for good discussions and interactions between members with its horizontal structure facilitating direct communication among stakeholders, transparency and inclusive decision-making processes.
Bernard Baha – Facilitator of the NES Platform Tanzania – explained how the RWG has been able to create a space for dialogue and allow the different stakeholders to address transversal issues from the local to the national level.
The SRMP equally contributed to IFAD country strategic objectives in Tanzania by ensuring that land governance responds to inclusive multi-stakeholder dialogue – in this case through the RWG – and independent monitoring of agricultural development by non-state actors, the land-based investments working group. The partnership also strengthened the capacity of the Government, the CSOs and communities to demand and undertake inclusive village land use planning and grazing-land registration. Initially, IFAD grant to the SRMP aimed to contribute to a larger project on dryland areas that unfortunately remained in the drafting phase.
Juma Mwatima – IFAD Country Program Manager in Tanzania – shares this perspective. In her view, IFAD has a technical and financial role to play to facilitate CSOs engagement at country level. This can be through non-lending financial supports such as grants for piloting initiative or through non-formal agreements such as consultations for the elaboration of a country strategy or a project document.
One of the main lessons emerging from this multi-stakeholders partnership experience is the positive impact of an enabling multilateral environment and a coordinated intervention among actors to deliver sustainable changes. Multi-stakeholder partnerships are powerful instruments to bridge the gap between public institutions, development actors, local organizations and the private sector. There, ILC members, including IFAD and its country offices, have a central role to play. Indeed, fostering ILC and IFAD collaboration at country-level through multi-stakeholder partnership can help to build trustworthy relations with the government and other key national actors. As the SRMP project has demonstrated, IFAD can promote CSOs' engagement by creating a space for policy advocacy though its programmatic operation, while ILC through its network can facilitate the connection between members; mobilize knowledge; and develop inclusive policy dialogue to advance its transformative agenda. Hence, both organisations present strong comparative advantages which, when accorded under an multi-stakeholder partnership, can help to bridge the gap between bottom-up and top-down approaches toward the implementation of more inclusive and sustainable land governance for all.
Photo credit: Jimmy Gaudin 2019
During the past years, the collaboration between international organizations, civil society organisations, and governments has led to substantial progress in improving tenure security for rural populations. Aware of the added value that multi-stakeholder partnerships can generate, and after having substantial results on their own, the International Land Coalition (ILC) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) understand the potential in developing their collaboration to deliver effective policies and programs for more sustainable impacts. For instance, ILC Members, platforms and initiatives offer an opportunity to support IFAD national policy engagement. Conversely, IFAD's programmatic operations at country level allow ILC members to partake in project implementation and policy dialogue. Hence, developing these comparative advantages and their complementarity is the first step to laying the ground for an enduring and fruitful collaboration.
A successful example of a multi-stakeholder partnership is the Sustainable Rangeland Management Project (SRMP), co-funded by IFAD, Belgian Fund for Food Security, Irish Aid and others. It has proved to be a strong multi-stakeholder partnership of donors, international agencies, national and local government, research institutes, international and national NGOs, and local communities.
In its first phase between 2010 and 2015, this partnership through SRMP assisted nine villages in Tanzania to carry out village land use planning (VLUP), and successfully piloted the implementation of a joint village planning across three of these, in Kiteto district, Manyara region in order to protect key shared grazing and other resources for village. Livestock keepers. Though supported by policy and legislation, such an intervention had not been implemented due to lack of capacity and funding. In its second phase (2016–2020) the joint village land use planning approach has been replicated in three new clusters of villages in Kiteto, the process started in a new district Chalinze, and kick-started the upscaling of the approach by national government. Not only was planning carried out but the first-ever Group Certificates of Customary Rights of Occupancy (CCROs) was issued to livestock keepers associations. (LKAs) for their grazing land. At the same time the Project has built capacity in such as conflict resolution, gender mainstreaming, and participatory rangeland management.
The SRMP contributed to the ILC’s Tanzania National Engagement Strategy (NES) as part of a larger program on inclusive land governance. Within the NES Tanzania, the rangelands working group (RWG) was established to take forward engagement on rangelands at the national level. ILRI and other members of this group supported this national engagement by covering costs of some RWG meetings and facilitating the development of national statement on rangelands by CSOs, among others. A second working group on land-based investments was also established. The RWG is composed of key stakeholders including representatives from government, multilateral organizations, and international and national NGOs. This diverse constituency provided for good discussions and interactions between members with its horizontal structure facilitating direct communication among stakeholders, transparency and inclusive decision-making processes.
Bernard Baha – Facilitator of the NES Platform Tanzania – explained how the RWG has been able to create a space for dialogue and allow the different stakeholders to address transversal issues from the local to the national level.
The SRMP equally contributed to IFAD country strategic objectives in Tanzania by ensuring that land governance responds to inclusive multi-stakeholder dialogue – in this case through the RWG – and independent monitoring of agricultural development by non-state actors, the land-based investments working group. The partnership also strengthened the capacity of the Government, the CSOs and communities to demand and undertake inclusive village land use planning and grazing-land registration. Initially, IFAD grant to the SRMP aimed to contribute to a larger project on dryland areas that unfortunately remained in the drafting phase.
Juma Mwatima – IFAD Country Program Manager in Tanzania – shares this perspective. In her view, IFAD has a technical and financial role to play to facilitate CSOs engagement at country level. This can be through non-lending financial supports such as grants for piloting initiative or through non-formal agreements such as consultations for the elaboration of a country strategy or a project document.
One of the main lessons emerging from this multi-stakeholders partnership experience is the positive impact of an enabling multilateral environment and a coordinated intervention among actors to deliver sustainable changes. Multi-stakeholder partnerships are powerful instruments to bridge the gap between public institutions, development actors, local organizations and the private sector. There, ILC members, including IFAD and its country offices, have a central role to play. Indeed, fostering ILC and IFAD collaboration at country-level through multi-stakeholder partnership can help to build trustworthy relations with the government and other key national actors. As the SRMP project has demonstrated, IFAD can promote CSOs' engagement by creating a space for policy advocacy though its programmatic operation, while ILC through its network can facilitate the connection between members; mobilize knowledge; and develop inclusive policy dialogue to advance its transformative agenda. Hence, both organisations present strong comparative advantages which, when accorded under an multi-stakeholder partnership, can help to bridge the gap between bottom-up and top-down approaches toward the implementation of more inclusive and sustainable land governance for all.