Using action research to improve land rights and governance in Africa – Cohort inception support

General

This project will support the launch of a new cohort of projects in Africa entitled “Using Action Research to Improve Land Rights and Governance for Communities, Women and Vulnerable Groups”. This new research builds on findings from a first phase of IDRC-supported research, “Building Accountability around Large Scale Land Acquisitions in sub-Saharan Africa”. This body of work addresses the growing pressures on rural lands and communities’ land rights and access to land resulting from increased investments in agricultural lands in developing countries in recent years. For this round of projects, IDRC launched a targeted call for proposals in May 2017. Four proposals were selected for support that together will cover Cameroon, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, and Sierra Leone. In complementary ways, the new three-year research projects aim to identify what works and what can be scaled up to improve land rights and governance for communities, women, and vulnerable groups in sub-Saharan Africa. An additional cluster of projects is anticipated for support in early 2018, drawing from the pool of proposals submitted through the call. This cohort inception support project aims to expand the reach and impact of those projects. It will support a joint inception workshop that will bring together the four research teams’ leads, candidates for the second cluster of projects, and additional experts. Teams will discuss common questions of research and methodology, and will plan joint activities across projects, such as a shared communication strategy. This approach builds on lessons learned on supporting cohorts, particularly the need to plan cross-project activities from the outset. Additional funds are also included for publication of a background report prepared earlier in 2017, “Commercial investments, pressures on land and legal empowerment in low and middle-income countries”, that informed the design of this body of research. Communications support will also be included for this body of work.