Feed the Future Ethiopia Land Governance Activity
Tetra Tech is strengthening Ethiopia’s land governance institutions to reduce conflict, increase incomes, and support well-planned urbanization contributing to Ethiopia’s Growth and Transformation Plan II.
Registering our land use rights for us and strengthening our customary leadership is the best program ever implemented in Borana, Ethiopia. All other programs cannot be sustainable unless our land use rights are protected and our customary leadership strengthened.
Samphole Jilo, manager of pastoral community rangeland resources in Borana
Building on more than a decade of land governance activities funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Feed the Future Ethiopia Land Governance Activity, implemented by Tetra Tech, is supporting efforts by the Government of Ethiopia (GoE) to scale-up the registration of pastoral landholdings. More than 60 percent of Ethiopia’s population live in pastoral areas. Tetra Tech helped the GoE to integrate legal innovation in legislation required to strengthen land rights of pastoral communities, support resilient management of rangeland resources, and sustainably manage livestock to improve livelihoods.
Weak land use planning and tenure security in urban areas has resulted in urban sprawl degrading precious arable agricultural land and fomented conflict. Through the Activity, we are assisting the GoE to develop its National Integrated Land Use Policy and Plan and pilot technologies and methodologies to systematically adjudicate and register urban land rights to improve resource governance, mitigate conflict, and support economic development. The Activity strengthens the capacity of urban and rural land administration institutions and provides technical assistance to integrate both into a single unified system.
Through the Activity, Tetra Tech supports the GoE’s development of policies and legislation to improve land tenure security for the nation’s pastoral, rural, and urban communities. In 2019, we supported the GoE’s finalization of revisions to the Expropriation of Landholdings for Public Purposes Proclamation No. 1161/2019. Tetra Tech assisted the GoE with evidence-based research and inclusive consultations with stakeholders that informed the development of law and policy.
Tetra Tech is supporting the GoE to develop and test innovative approaches and introduce appropriate technologies to help integrate rural and urban land institutions, pilot systematic adjudication and registration of urban land, and scale recognition and registration of pastoral communities’ land rights. The Activity helps strengthen the capacity of the GoE land administration institutions and officials to implement local solutions to systematically address challenges and achieve sustainable reform.
In addition, Tetra Tech assists in the establishment of Community Land Governance Entities (CLGE) in pastoral communities and the development of bylaws to promote transparent and accountable governance that includes women and youth in CLGE decisions to improve their access to community rangeland resources, strengthen resilience, increase incomes, and improve health outcomes. Through the Activity, Tetra Tech is helping to create more opportunities for women to serve in land administration offices, improve women and youth’s access to land and resources, raise incomes, and build resiliency.