Net Mapping toolbox for development practitioners, an helpful tool to improve needs assessment, strategic planning and monitoring in projects

Case study project gum producers Sudan (1)

During the ShareFair event(26 - 29 September 2011)  currently on going at International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) I had the opportunity to participate yesterday to the presentation of Net - Map.

Case study project gum producers Sudan (2)

This interview-based mapping tool helps practitioners assessing needs, improve planning and monitoring in development projects. The methods helps better understand, visualize, discuss  the situations in which many different actors influence the final outcomes (Net-Map Brochure: 679 KB).  After the identification of all the relevant stakeholders to the project in question, in the second phase are defined the links among the various actors and assigned different colors to the links (e.g. who is giving money, influence the decisions, or give commands etc.). The use of influence towers helps to clarify the level of influence that certain actors play in the final success of the project.

Presentation made by Paolo Brunello

more information:
http://netmap.wordpress.com/
Communities and networks connection

The discovery and exploitation of natural resources in Bolivian Gran Chaco. An opportunity for national development but also a menace for local degradation

Map of the Gran Chaco region

The Gran Chaco is a plain region located west of the Paraguay river and east of the Andes shared among Paraguay, Bolivia, Brazil and Argentina.
The recent discovery of natural gas reserves in  Bolivia  put at risk the life of indigenous people and the unique environment of the Aguaragüe National Park and Integrated Management Natural Area (Parque Nacional y Área Natural de Manejo Integrado Serranía del Aguaragüe) in the Tarija Department .
The administration of the President Evo Morales has declared finding new natural gas fields a national priority. The elders and leaders in the indigenous community (Council of Captains) question the government´s approach in granting environmental permits for seismic exploration used to monitor the presence of natural gas in their territories. Communities are concerned about the dynamite explosions set up 15 metres underground, because the blasts shift the courses of underground water in an area where daily temperatures are above 30 degrees Celsius and other water sources are scarce. This seismic exploration also frightens off the local fauna as well as species that are sources of food for the indigenous peoples.

Of some 730,000 hectares that the government assigned to the oil companies, 317,218 are located in territories of Yaku-igua, Itika Guasu and Tentayapi Guaraní indigenous groups. Some 80,000 native peoples inhabit the region.
The oil companies operating in the area are: BG Bolivia Corporation (with British capital), the government´s Chaco SA, Petrobras, Argentina´s Pluspetrol, Repsol Bolivia (an affiliate of Spain´s Repsol), and Total  Bolivie, of France´s Total Corporation.

The oil industry is Bolivia´s principal source of tax revenues, and in 2008 oil profits generated 1.46 billion dollars and there is no willingness in the government to turn its attention to alternative activities for the region, such as tourism and attracting resources for preserving Bolivia´s forests.
Tarija Department has reserves of 41.7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, 80 percent of the country´s total. Most of this fuel is exported to Brazil and Argentina.

The state-run oil and gas firm Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB) has decided last January the location for the Bolivia's Gran Chaco gas-to-liquids separation plant. The third biggest plant in South America which will be built in the Madrejones-Yacuiba area, in the southern Tarija department will be operational in 2014.

Indigenous people are worried about the increasing destruction of the Chaco region's natural heritage. The symptoms of this destruction include contamination of water sources, changes in climate and rainfall, deforestation and soil erosion. In 1926 the state-run oil company YPFB began drilling oil in the area, and when it ended operations in 1987, it left behind destroyed forests and oil wells that leak toxic liquids, which continue to affect the local flora and fauna.

Not just the exploration, but also the exploitation and commercial use will bring environmental damages.
The construction of pipelines and roads will be necessary to connect the gas fields with hub likes ports or plants.
The lack of regulations for consulting indigenous communities in Bolivia on initiatives that affect their territories is at the heart of a dispute over a road to facilitate traffic from Brazil, which would run through an enormous tropical national park self-governed by indigenous communities.

Evo Morales
President of Bolivia

The Bolivian government's enthusiasm over the construction of roads that would make it possible for Brazil to transport goods to the Pacific Ocean has come under fire from academics and from native protesters.
The government argues that exporters in Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay need the roads, to be able to cross this landlocked country of 1.09 million square km in west-central South America, to reach Pacific Ocean ports in Chile and Peru and ship their goods to China.

More Information:
Guarani oppose Evo Morales extractive policies
Morales Clashes with Native Protesters over Road through Tropical Park
Guaraní, Tapieté Peoples Fight Gas Exploration

Land grabbing, the modern colonialism

Oxfam has just released and interesting report entitled Land and Power. The growing scandal surrounding the new wave of investments in land on the land grabbing phenomenon. It's emblematic the story of 20K farmers evicted by their properties in Uganda cited in the Oxfam website.  During the World Social Forum held in Dakar, Senegal last February 2011, social movements, organizations of small food producers and other civil societies organizations released a collective appeal against land grabbing. Over 650 organizations have already endorsed it. The petitioners demand that:

• States, regional organizations and international institutions guarantee people's right to land and support family farming and agro-ecology. Appropriate agricultural policies should consider all different types of producers (indigenous peoples, pastoralists, artisanal fishermen, peasants, agrarian reform beneficiaries) and answer specifically to the needs of women and youth.

• Governments, the Regional Unions of States, FAO and other national and international institutions to implement the commitments that were made at the International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD) of 2006, namely securing land rights of users, the revival of agrarian reform process based on a fair access to natural resources and rural development for the welfare of all.

• FAO to adopt strengthened Guidelines on Governance of Land and Natural Resources be strengthened, to be based on Human Rights as defined in the various charters and covenants - these rights being effective only if binding legal instruments are implemented at the national and international level to impose on the states compliance with their obligations.

• Moreover, each state has to be held responsible for the impact of its policies or activities of its companies in the countries targeted by the investments. the supremacy of Human Rights must be reaffirmed over international trade and finance regimes, which are sources of speculation on natural resources and agricultural goods.

The petitioners also urge the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) at FAO to definitively reject the World Bank principles for responsible agricultural investment (RAI), which are illegitimate and inadequate to address the phenomenon, and to include the commitments of the ICARRD as well as the conclusions of the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) in its Global Framework for Action.
Peasants affected by land grabbing will hand it over to governments during the negotiations on the Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in Rome from 10-14 October.

The so called Dakar Appeal against land grab has been already signed by almost 1K institutions. Among these also, ActionAid and The Oakland Institute the US Think Thank that wrote a number of reports on the bad situation in some African countries like Ethiopia and Sierra Leone. In the African continent the recent large scale investments in land are resulting in food insecurity, the displacement of small farmers, conflict, environmental devastation, water loss, and the further impoverishment and political instability of African nations.

More information at:
Food security and the global land grab
World Social Forum 2011 - Dakar, Senegal
Conference Report of ICARRD
Press release on the Oakland Institute website
Towards volontary guidelines on responsible governance of tenure of land and other natural resources (FAO report, 2009)
volontary guidelines on responsible governance of tenure of land and other natural resources (Zero Draft)