The GIZ Resilience Against Climate Change (REACH) project has initiated the process of facilitating community Land Use Planning to enable communities assess their available resources and potentials, social and economic conditions so as to adopt the best land use option for community development.
The Community Land Use Planning initiative was currently piloted in 18 communities in six districts in the Upper West and Savannah Region to enable them ascertain the challenges associated with its implementation for up-scaling.
The districts are: Wa West, Nadowli-Kaleo District; Jirapa, Sissala East, Nandom and Lawra Municipalities in the Upper West Region and the Sawla-Tuna-Kalba District in the Savannah Region.
The Technical Advisor for the Geographic Information System (GIS) and Remote Sensing at the GIZ EU-REACH project, Mr Joseph Nyaaba Akongbagre revealed this at a stakeholder engagement workshop in Wa on Wednesday.
The workshop was to review the community land use mapping approach adopted by the GIZ, collate input and identify threats and opportunities in the community land use planning and mapping approach.
Mr Akongbagre said the object of the Community Land Use and Planning was to develop Community Action Plan (CAPs) to be incorporated into the Medium Term Development Plan of the Municipal and District Assemblies (MDAs).
He said there was the need for the community to know its available resources and development priorities before it could seek support from the government and development partners.
“In every community you need to know the resources and land uses of the community, so that you will then know what you want in future, because if you dot know what you have you can’t know what you want.
“On that basis the communities were expected to come out with a community land use plan of the community, whether it is for the next four years, next ten years, next twenty years, it is the community land use plan”, he explained.
Mr Akongbagre indicated that the GIZ had integrated climate resilient interventions in the community land use planning initiative to help promote climate sensitive development plans at the community level.
In that the communities were sensitised to adopt climate smart practices such as creating a community forest or agro-forestry.
He observed that GIZ EU-REACH project had a financing mechanism to support community land use plan proposals that were climate sensitive.
The Upper West Regional Director for Land Use and Spatial Planning Authority, Mr Rockson Niminga-Beka, said there was the need for them as stakeholders to work to ensure standardisation of the procedures adopted.
“They (the procedures) must resonate with the people first and must be consist with the natural principle of functionality”, he added, and called for capacity building for the officers in climate resilience planning.
He said the Land Use and Spatial Planning Act, Act 925 (2016) mandates physical and spatial planners to ensure “sustainable development of land and human settlement through a decentralised planning system and judicious use of land to improve quality of life”.
He also cited other legal regimes such as the Local Government Act, (2016) Act 936, new Land Act, (2020) Act 1036 and the Survey Act, (1962) No. 127 which were all geared towards sustainable land management to improve human life.
Participants at the workshop included the academia from the SDD UBIDS, Civil Society Organisations, MDAs and land sector agencies among others.
Kommentare