Community Development Association (CDA)

Land Equity Initiative: Empowering Communities through Secure Land Rights

Community Development Association (CDA) has facilitated the Landless Peoples to ensure access to the Public Land And National habitat support by the state

Objective:

· Stability and Protection from Eviction:

Tenure security aims to provide individuals and families with the assurance that they will not be arbitrarily evicted from their homes. This stability is vital for fostering a sense of security and well-being, allowing residents to invest in their homes and communities without the fear of losing them suddenly.

· Access to Services and Infrastructure:

When tenure security is established, residents are more likely to receive access to essential services and infrastructure, such as water, sanitation, electricity, and transportation. Government is willing to ensure in areas with secure tenure, improving the quality of life and economic opportunities for the inhabitants.

· Economic Empowerment and Social Development:

Secure tenure would lead to economic empowerment by enabling individuals to use their land for income-generating activities as well as promotes social development by fostering community cohesion and encouraging residents to participate in local governance and development initiatives.

Legal and Policy Framework Development:

CDA is deeply committed not only to organise and institutionalize the landless for tapping the local resources and for ensuring the access to the service delivery support system but also capacitated the collective mechanism from the grassroots level the voice of the affected Peoples for policy formulation or legislative reformation through People Centred advocacy mobilization to the respective Constituency level. At the moment within the 8(eight) nos.of the Constituencies in CDA’s working areas the Federation of Peoples Organizations (Gender based FPOs) and Women Federation of Peoples Organizations (only women centred WFPOs), actively engaged and dealing with the respective Constituents (policymakers)/ elected representatives responsible for influencing public policy-making and advocating for agrarian reforms. CDA’s Peoples centred advocacy efforts are focused on promoting agrarian issues: Land rights as human rights, equal wage rights, and gender equality, sustainable livelihoods and climate resilience, and the protection of land, water, forest, organic-agriculture and natural resources and for defending the land rights defenders.

Analyzing existing laws and policies related to land and resource management in the limited access.
Identifying gaps and proposes necessary amendments or new legislation to ensure equitable access, sustainable use, and conservation of resources.
Advocating for the adoption and enforcement of sustainable resource management policies at the local, regional, and national levels.

Community Empowerment:

Supporting the establishment of community-based people’s Organizations (POs) to actively participate in resource stewardship.
Promoting the development of sustainable livelihood opportunities, such as agro-forestry and sustainable agriculture to reduce dependence on resource extraction.

Conflict Transformation and Social Justice:

CDA have identified land conflict factors and Actors towards build transformation mechanisms to land tenure, access, and usage rights.

Objective of the Analysis: Identifying, understands, and address the underlying causes and dynamics of land disputes to promote equitable and sustainable land management and use.

The key driving factor of land related conflicts in Bangladesh is the increase of environmentally and culturally insensitive government and privately funded development projects. In the light of the non-implementation of laws, policies and practices at local and national level, it is easy to push such projects forward. The non-implementation of laws, policies and practices is the result of corrupt, dominant, controlling and biased mentality of the bureaucracy and political leadership; and also of dependency, insensitivity and lack of skills in enactment of laws and its implementation by the political leaders. Due to the increase of environmentally and culturally insensitive government and privately funded development projects, the indigenous peoples and minorities of the country and populations are losing their land and are displaced. Another major factor is policy implementation gap due to corruption and de-politicization. Public land distribution committee is stop down due to de- politicization.

Developing conflict transformation mechanisms to address disputes related to land tenure, resource access, and usage rights.
Promoting social justice and gender equality in resource management, ensuring the inclusion and participation of marginalized groups.
Facilitating dialogue and negotiation processes among stakeholders to find mutually beneficial solutions and avoid conflicts.