Guyana Lands and Surveys to partner with FAO to implement Sustainable Land Development project

Last Updated on Tuesday, 28 June 2016, 14:31 by Denis Chabrol

The Guyana Lands and Surveys Commission (GL&SC) will be partnering with the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (UNFAO) to implement a Sustainable Land Development and Management Project, the Ministry of the Presidency said in a statement on Tuesday.

The proposed project is expected to take effect in January 2017. This is the largest collaboration of its kind in Guyana between the UNFAO and the GL&SC.

The project will be funded through the Guyana REDD+ Investment Fund (GRIF), in line with the Low Carbon Development Strategy, and in keeping with the ideals of a low emissions pathway of the Green Economy Framework.

The partnership was the outcome of a meeting, which was held on Friday at the GL&SC between Commissioner of the agency, Mr. Trevor Benn and UNFAO representatives comprising Dr. John Ronald Ford, Sub-regional Coordinator, UNFAO Sub-regional Office for the Caribbean, Dr. Lystra Fletcher-Paul, Deputy UNFAO Coordinator/ Administrative and Technical Capacity – Land and Water Divisions; Mr. Reuben Hamilton Robertson, Guyana Country Representative of the UNFAO and Ms. Angela Alleyne, Assistant UNFAO Representative for Guyana. Also present at the discussion was Mr. Marlon Bristol, Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist and Head of the Project Management Office, Ministry of the Presidency.

The proposed project, among other things, is intended to; promote good environmental stewardship in a green economy to achieve a better quality of life, improve planning, monitoring and evaluation capacities to address land management needs, improve standard of living through sustainable land use and management practices, strengthen monitoring and enforcement capacity and ensure compliance with sustainable land management practices, mainstream policy and implementation by natural resource agencies and implement sustainable land development and management and monitoring using indicators for the reduction of land use conflicts and innovative problem solving initiatives.

It is also expected to increase land reclamation of degraded public lands and reduce degraded areas in relation to total land area, improve organisational image through better client-employees relations and ensure greater coordination and improved service delivery in technical areas.

As the guardian of public lands and the National Focal Point Agency to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), the Commission has implemented numerous projects aimed at improving public land administration in Guyana and contributing to poverty alleviation and national development while meeting the country’s international obligations.

Recently, Cabinet has taken the bold step of approving Guyana’s alignment process to the UNCCD’s 10- year (2008-2018) Strategic Plan giving the green light for the implementation of the Aligned National Action Plan to Combat Land Degradation (NAP). This provides further impetus to addressing issues related degraded lands.