Evidence to Inform Liberia’s Land Policy: Land Governance in an Interconnected World Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty Washington D.C., March 19-23, 2018 Evidence to Inform Liberia’s Land Policy: Evaluation Findings from Namati’s Community Land Protection Program (CLPP) Authors: Kate Marple-Cantrell, Heather Huntington, Ph.D. , and Alexandra Hartman, Ph.D. Poster Design: Aidan Schneider THE PROGRAM THE EVALUATION Communities in the CLPP Evaluation Developed by Namati and implemented by the Sustainable Development Institute Evaluation supported by USAID and IDRC and implemented by the Cloudburst Group Focused on: Community legal empowerment Boundary harmonization and conflict resolution Includes mapping land Fostering good governance Developing rules for community land and natural resource management Electing a diverse governing body Questions: Whether and How the CLPP- Strengthens rural land tenure security Improves perceptions of governance and local leaders’ accountability Documents community land boundaries Codifies rules to protect community land and natural resource claims Protects land rights of women and marginalized groups Leads to conservation and sustainable natural resource use Mixed Methods Compares control and treatment villages after the intervention, in 2017 (N=818) Compares control and treatment over time (2014 to 2017) (difference-in-difference, N=683) Data collected in Lofa, Maryland and River Gee counties Includes: Household survey Leader survey Key informant interview Town chief, women, youth and minority leaders Focus group discussions Women, youth, hunters, elders and members of minority groups FINDINGS Community Land Development and Natural Resource Condition Place higher value on communal lands Less participation in communal development Men plant less rice and fewer trees on community farmland No effect on perceptions of forest resource conditions Land Governance Significant increase in trust, satisfaction, perceived accountability, capacity and transparency of leaders Households report: Fair decision-making about land use and access Greater ability to protect forests More ethical behavior More community consultation An enumerator and a household head in Lofa county, Liberia. “To me, the resources are finishing [being used up]… We used to have forest from here all the way, but they are cutting it down now… We get people from other land coming onto this land, taking some of this land because they want to make farms.” —Focus group discussion with Elders, Lofa Tenure Security Absence of strong changes in perceptions of tenure security Possibly due to program incompletion; data collected mid-implementation Community Empowerment CLPP increases knowledge of community land boundaries (Qualitative) Upward trend over time in all households’ (treatment and control) legal knowledge High overall support for land reform With and without prompt that it will involve giving women equal rights to land The Women’s Leader of a study community listens as the survey team introduces themselves in Lofa county, Liberia. Qualitative researchers (center and right) conduct a focus group discussion with youth in Lofa county, Liberia DISCUSSION Large, positive CLPP effect on how households perceive their leaders Land governance programs are most successful with long-term, on-going support, training and capacity building Boundary harmonization components could be scaled-up to all of Liberia Widespread satisfaction with: boundary negotiations; identifying boundary landmarks; and planting boundary trees Need for longer term data collection to fully understand how trends develop Inconclusive indicators include perceived threat of encroachment, prevalence of land conflicts and women’s empowerment Long-term outcomes such as improvements in natural resource condition and livelihoods indicators POS 01-01