General

In Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, Dayak communities have experienced threats to their livelihoods due to wide-scale and rapid changes in land use over the last ten years. These trends also threaten the sustainable use of natural resources. A new democratic regime in 1998 brought about notable improvements in the legal framework such as recognizing communal land rights, managing forest areas, ensuring sustainable use of natural resources, and facilitating participatory decision-making and equitable negotiations. However, many Indonesians, including the Dayaks, are still largely unable to use the law to defend their interests. This project is implemented in partnership with the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (an affiliate of Friends of the Earth International), the largest and oldest environmental advocacy non-governmental organization in Indonesia. It aims to empower marginalized Dayak communities to obtain remedies for the impacts caused by the operations of companies on common-use lands. This involves engaging with administrative structures, and pressing local governments for more consistent and just implementation, as well as better environmental and social outcomes of state regulation. Traditionally, this role has been filled by community paralegals, who are able to use knowledge of the law and legal processes, familiarity with the local context, and a range of practical strategies to empower communities to protect and enforce their rights under law. The project will recruit, train, and support 24 community paralegals, half of them women, to work alongside communities facing the impacts of unsustainable changes in land use and non-compliance with existing legislation. The activities include education and training, legal counseling and mediation, documentation and mapping, and data analysis and policy recommendations for institutions at the provincial level and at the national Ministry of Environment and Forestry. The objective is to enable the local community, especially women, to navigate legal channels and seek peaceful remedies for fair solutions to land-related conflicts. It will empower them to access remedies offered through legal and regulatory institutions and make government responsive to local community grievances. Establishing relationships with local authorities to advocate for regulatory and institutional changes will help reduce the enforcement gap, strengthen institutional mechanisms for environmental and social protection of the local communities, and enable timely responses to the impacts of large-scale land transformations in Central Kalimantan.

Objectives

To initiate a transformational shift towards sustainable, integrated management of multi-use dryland landscapes in northern Namibia, building on Land Degradation Neutrality principles

Other

Note: Disbursement data provided is cumulative and covers disbursement made by the project Agency.

Target Groups

1. The project will work towards the implementation and mainstreaming of sustainable and integrated approaches to the management of dryland landscapes and decision-making regarding land use in selected landscapes in Namibia. By scaling-up SLM and SFM best practices in priority landscapes in the north of the country, the project will also have a transboundary impact (Kunene basin) complementing existing in-country and neighbouring country interventions, which will in turn contribute to the achievement of both the project and the Impact Program main objectives. The strengthened national policy and capacity on LDN and the empowerment of stakeholders in SLM/SFM/IWRM planning and implementation, in combination with the establishment/strengthening of inclusive dryland commodity value chains, will have a positive impact beyond the target landscapes.2. Global benefits from the project’s successful implementation highlighted in Table 9 and elaborated in Section (8). In summary, they comprise:· 360,200 ha of production systems, located within three target landscapes that cover 1,455,049 ha of Miombo-Mopane Woodlands, under improved management practices as a result of applying LDN response hierarchy of avoidance, mitigation and restoration. [Refer to Tables 5 and 6, respectively, for disaggregated data and descriptions of the interventions.]· Carbon benefits totalling 1,301,476 tCO2e, based on sequestration of carbon arising from the above improvements in production systems and avoidance of emissions in the AFOLU sector.3. Local benefits from the project’s successful implementation will include:· SFM/SLM practices mainstreamed across the country: Principles and evidence-based best practices of SFM/SLM will be disseminated among project beneficiaries, including local communities and national institutions. By implementing activities related to it, the project will be able to reduce key policy barriers currently challenging the country’s enforcement to prevent causes of land degradation and will bring a positive long-term impact on a part of Namibia where land degradation is the most critical issue.· Increased local capacity: Different project activities will focus on enhance key stakeholders’ capacity for handling spatial data, develop strategic partnerships, mobilize finance, and conceive projects, all related to SFM/SLM practices, creating the conditions for a collaborative landscape management. The project expects to train approximately 300+ land managers in multiple locations across the landscapes of northern Namibia (targeting at least 30% are women) with focus on skills development for SLM/SFM/LR/IWRM policies and practice· Co-benefit of GEF investment: At least 10,000 beneficiaries (40% women) from the three target landscapes (Kunene-Cuvelai: 5,500; Etosha: 2,500; Okavango: 2,000).· Value chain development: The project foresees the strengthening of viable and sustainable promising value chains identified during the PPG process. Producer organizations will be able to participate in capacity building activities, as well as have access to finance and market mechanisms, which will allow their business to develop. Thus, it is also foreseen that by contributing to the productivity and sustainability of agricultural practices and green value chain development, the project, has the potential to indirectly contribute to long-lasting improvement of livelihoods and food security, particularly in direct beneficiary communities of the demonstration landscapes.