LAND Administration to Nurture Development (LAND) Quarterly Report No. 12

Under Component 1, Improved legal and policy frameworks at national and local levels, Bahir Dar University and Hawassa Universities submitted the final version of their assessments for Amhara and SNNP National Regional States, respectively. These assessments are being prepared for validation workshops in the following quarter. Mekelle University is conducting the assessment for Tigray NRS. The LAND subcontractor, The Amhara Design and Supervision Works Enterprise, delivered the first draft and assessment report of the guidelines for pastoral communal land expropriation, valuation, and compensation in Afar NRS. The Committee tasked with drafting the Oromia Pastoral Land Use Rights Regulation prepared a zero draft and submitted it to the Oromia Rural Lands and Environmental Protection Bureau for review. Consultations with community members in pastoral areas will be held after comments from OBERLEP are incorporated into a revised draft of the Regulation. The Somali NRS draft pastoral land administration and use regulation was translated into the Somali language and is pending review by the land authority. Amendments to the Federal Land Administration and Use Proclamation No. 456/2005 were finalized and submitted to senior management of the Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Under Component 2, Strengthened capacity in national, regional, and local land administration and use planning, LAND engaged an Ethiopian consultant to provide the Ethiopian Mapping Agency with technical assistance to rehabilitate and make fully operational its Continuously Operating Reference Station. The consultant assisted the EMA to resolve telecommunication and power supply issues that hampered proper functioning of the CORS stations and trained 16 EMA and four Information Network Security Agency staff in installing and operating CORS. The consultant is now preparing a project proposal for the development of the geodetic network of the country based on CORS Global Navigation Satellite System in the short, medium, and long-term. LAND continued its efforts to build capacity of federal and regional land administration and land use professionals in land use planning and GIS and remote sensing. The training delivered by LAND is designed to support the efforts of the federal and regional governments to produce national, regional, and local master land use plans as envisioned in the nation's Second Growth and Transformation Plan. During the reporting period, federal and regional trainers who successfully completed LAND's Training of Trainers program delivered training to a total of 1,441 zonal and woreda staff and 636 development agents from four regions (Amhara, Oromia, and SNNPR). Under Component 3, Strengthened capacity of Ethiopian universities to engage in policy analysis and research related to land tenure and train land administration and land use professionals, the first batch of 41 students enrolled in the Institute of Land Administration of Bahir Dar University's M.Sc. program commenced their thesis research work in their respective regions. They are expected to graduate in October 2016. The second group of 41 students completed their first session at the ILA/BDU in August 2015 and have taken home assignments that they will complete before their second and final summer session in June-August 2016. The grantees selected under the LAND's competitive grant scheme made satisfactory progress towards completing field research. On-the-spot monitoring visits were conducted by LAND experts, and grant closeout procedures were discussed with grantees at meetings held with the leadership and Principal Investigators of each grant. At its meeting of February 4, 2016, the Executive Committee of ETHIOLANDNET adopted the network's five-year strategic plan (2016-2020) submitted by the Secretariat. The Committee also discussed the national conference being organized on land research, which is planned to take place in September/October 2016. A working group was formed to follow up on the preparations leading to the conference, including identifying thematic areas, selecting and inviting paper presenters and participants, and identifying funding sources.