National Land Research Agenda Workshop to be Held

The USAID-supported LAND Project will hold a National Land Research Agenda Workshop on September 24-26th, 2012 at the Umubano Hotel.

It will be Co-hosted by the Rwanda Natural Resources Authority, the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Ministry of Justice, the event will bring together Government of Rwanda partners, research institutes and universities, and civil society organizations to identify critical research priorities for informing the direction of land policy.

The workshop will apply a participatory process to glean the most urgent and potentially impactful policy research, which in turn will be used to frame research topics that the LAND Project will support through competitive subawards.

Planned activities for the workshop include presentation of recent, policy-relevant empirical research on land, structured discussions in plenary and small group sessions, and harvesting and debating research priorities with the aim of selecting 3-4 research priority proposals for support by the LAND Project. Organization and facilitation of the workshop will be led by the Institute of Research and Dialogue for Peace.

“Through hosting a workshop dedicated to establishing the most critical land-related policy research priorities, the LAND Project will have the basis for supporting Rwanda-led research on these priorities through competitive subcontracts.

These awards will also enable local institutions to collaborate with international partners to strengthen Rwandan capacity to produce top-notch research,” said Anna KNOX, Chief of Party of LAND Project.

The LAND Project is committed to strengthening the resilience of Rwandan communities, citizens and institutions through expanding the pool of high quality, evidence-based research on land issues which can inform land policy.

To achieve this aim, the project seeks to build the capacity of local research entities and civil society organizations to generate policy research related to land and advocate effectively for continuous adaptation of policy in the interest of ordinary Rwandan citizens.