Community active planning

Community active planning

Local women in negotiation Several experiences show that the increasing number of conflicts and disputes related to land, natural resources, and land degradation demonstrates a pressing need to continue discussing these issues and to point to concrete aspects of their application.  In recent years, adaptations of the methodology were undertaken by central Departments/Divisions and by decentralized units through efforts in various field projects.  Participatory and Negotiated Territorial Development (PNTD)  is an example of this trend.  PNTD is an ongoing process, it  is a copy-left type of approach,  meaning that it is a work in progress. The main objective of this approach is not just producing plans, but mainly giving people a say on their own development process. The idea is to encourage ownership and having local actors genuinely involved in the process. It supports bottom-up and negotiated decision-making processes and encourages social dialogue and partnerships between the actors within a territory.

The PNTD approach, as a bottom-up one, focuses on planning at a local level. Nevertheless, essential activities related to land use planning have to be carried out at higher administrative levels. The main responsibilities of higher-level activities are to create the framework conditions in which a local-level negotiated approach can be effectively implemented. To be, economically viable, socially just and culturally appropriate, development interventions need to address the issue of power asymmetries that are determined by unequal access to and control over resources and information.

In recent years some experiences have been done through this type of approach, promoting dialogue and negotiation amongst concerned actors. Examples of that are:

  • Nepal: setting up a technical support to the agrarian reform program through a PNTD approach. For more details please find attached the Report of national land policy workshop
  • Angola Land project. Please find attached the report that describe how through an intensive and demanding inclusive dialogue, it has been possible to create conditions for carrying out land delimitation cum titling exercise for a first San Community, whose official delivery has been carried out in April 2007.
  • Sudan: The project activities have  supported capacity building of selected institutions like the Southern Sudan Land Commission (SSLC) and the communities to tackle tenure arrangements, resolution of land disputes and natural resource-based conflicts management.

Example:

Plan d'action communautaire du micro bassin versant de Kibogoye

Plan d'action communautaire du micro bassin versant de Nyakibari