Network Support Programme Activity

The project establishes a country-level, multi-stakeholder National Network on Land to build up alliances for action involving government, intergovernmental and civil-society organizations.

Working together on land means helping each other and opening up the entry point for possible opportunities. The land alliance therefore is required to empower the rural poor by increasing their access to productive assets, especially land, water and common property by increasing their direct participation in decision-making process at local, national, regional and international levels. It will help adopt policies and implement laws that guarantee well-defined and enforceable land and water-use rights and promote legal security of tenure, recognizing the existence of different national laws or systems of land access and tenure.

The alliance will be known as Nepalese Land Alliance (NELA) based at Mobilization and Development (MODE) - Nepal, the national partner of the International Land Coalition.

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Overall Goals

The primary goal of the national land alliance is to establish a forum for national sustainable development with its primary objective being to improve the secure access of the rural poor to land and other productive factors and assets.

The alliance will strive to build up collaboration between the civil-society organizations (CSO), community-based organizations (CBOs), bilateral and international actors and the government, in order to empower the rural poor by increasing their access to productive assets especially land, water and common property, and by increasing their direct participation in decision-making processes at the national level.

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Specific Objectives

• More specifically, the Nepalese Land Alliance objectives are to:

• facilitate participatory dialogue between the CSOs/CBOs/NGOs, government, donors, and international land alliance groups;

• disseminate knowledge through community-based workshops on existence of different national laws and systems of land access and tenure;

• establish joint action among the CSOs/CBOs and farmers groups to secure resources tenure for households with user rights and increase access to land by the landless and near landless, and

• help adopt policies and implement laws that guarantee well defined and enforceable land and water use rights and promote legal security of tenure.

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Alliance Activities and Implementation Schedule

The approach of the NELA will be through the initiation of the start up workshops between and among the CSO/CBOs/NGOs with sharing idea and experiences from other land alliances at the regional or international level. The following activities in this regard are envisaged:

1. Start up Workshop (4 months )

1. Identify new partners working on land and document and prepare the roster with their details: location, area of work, track records, issues documented, responses of the communities, efforts made in the past and performances etc.

2. Organize a start-up workshop to discuss on initiation of national land alliances, share idea and experiences of other countries with that of Nepal and identify/prepare possible action plans for the future courses of action, Ugandan Land Alliance and Association of Land Reform and Development (ALRD, Bangladesh) and design Nepal action plan.

2. Network Development Processes (8 months)

1. Review and provide advice on the National Plan on Land (National Planning Commission and Ministry of Land Reform), the law and implementation modalities, the commitment of the government, target set and achievements made in the past.

2. Conduct a participatory consultation workshop at community level or development region based on review of implementation of action plans and institutional linkages; the roles played and dissemination of knowledge on existence of different national laws and systems of land access and tenure.

3. National Workshop (3 months)

1. Workshop with participation from the government, donors and NELA working partners at the grass roots level - NGOs/CBOs/CSOs, formal and informal farmers groups.

2. Collect ideas, experiences and policy models and laws from the participants and document and disseminate to the different stakeholders.

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Beneficiary of the Project

The lessons from previous policies and programmes for improving access to land by the poor, have taught that the peoples' movements lacking institutional and public support and government led programmes lacking the support of peoples' organizations, have both failed. What is needed is revitalized alliance of governments and civil-society organizations, coupled with coherent support from the international and bilateral community.

Therefore, the proposed Nepalese Land Alliance (NELA), the joint efforts of institutions, public, government and peoples' organization is anticipated to benefit directly to the Nepalese citizens particularly the landless and near landless poor at large and others like the CSOs, CBOs, farmer's organizations and groups.

Land alliance is supposed to replicate and scale up the best practices of some communities for the benefit of others and as a basis for national policy consideration. More importantly, they are an opportunity for all the parties involved to move from their individual roles into collective ones, where new opportunities can be created and commitments undertaken. Nepalese Land Alliance will support government commitments and the political requirements of the outcomes of the WSSD in order to reach targets and achieve concrete results in respect of secure land access and sustainable resources management.

With its experience as a national partner organization of the International Land Coalition, MODE Nepal will facilitate the Nepalese Land Alliance activities in Nepal which will involve - CSOs, CBOs, informal farmers groups, the I/NGOs, government institutions policy makers and analyst, research scholars, bilateral and other international agencies.

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Factors Ensuring Sustainability

The land alliance activities in Nepal would be a creative and collective initiative for national development through the planning and programming on resource tenure. Since the programme would be a joint activity of the government policy makers and practitioners, civil society, community-based organizations, NGOs and representatives of the donor and intergovernmental organizations for common purpose, there could be a concrete idea shared and plan designed for the future policy formulation and support to the poor. Basic purpose of the alliance would prioritize and enable poor and their organizations to increase access to productive resources, public services and institutions and particularly on land, water, employment, opportunities, credit, education and health.

First, the present alliance activities would be a joint endeavour. Second, it would have a triangular support among the peoples' organizations and government and global institutions. It all attests that the programme would definitely sustain primarily because the system, processes and mechanisms will be developed with support from all stakeholders to work as a common platform. Further, these activities will be supported by the information and knowledge generated during this period.

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Monitoring and Evaluation

It is anticipated that the International Land Coalition will play a coordinating role for monitoring the progress of activities. In addition, at the country level, based on the activities schedule, MODE Nepal will be responsible for monitoring the activities and evaluate the programmes at the community, regional and national level.

The results of the activities implemented will be summed up by MODE and documented in due course, preferably in every six months, and submitted to the Secretariat of International Land Coalition and different parties/organizations involved within the country through progress reports and newsletters and disseminated to the regional and global partners though the electronic mail.

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