Masifundise is part of the International Development Research Centre’s three year project which will look at how the international tenure guidelines can be used by communities living adjacent and in Marine Protected Areas.
Masifundise’s Leila Emdon with Carsten Pederson attended a briefing session, hosted by IDRC in Uganda. The briefing session took place from 12 to 16 January this year. The session was attended by representatives from various international organisations including PLAAS, Trans National Institute and Katosi Women Development Trust.
“The project aims to find out how (through action research) the tenure guidelines can be used by communities as an empowering tool in their struggles for human rights in relation to MPAs and to build capacity and political consciousness among affected communities.” said Emdon.
The project will take place in South Africa, Mali, Nigeria and Uganda and will bring out insights that can be useful to other social movements also confronted by different impacts of large-scale land deals on various community groups , the differentiated political reactions by affected communities – and the way in which (inter) national governance instruments and principles can be mobilized to protect and promote the interest of poor people in the context of current resource deals.