Global Development
In Tanzania, The Cloudburst Group is working with USAID to design and implement an innovative pilot called the Mobile Applications to Secure Tenure (MAST) project. The Cloudburst Group has developed an easy-to-use, open-source mobile application that can capture the information needed to issue formal documentation of land rights. Coupled with a cloud-based data management system to store geospatial and demographic information, the project is designed to lower costs and time involved in registering land rights and, importantly, to make the process more transparent and accessible to local people. The project is being implemented in rural Tanzania working directly with villagers to map and record individual land rights, strengthen local governance institutions, and build government capacity.
Following best practices, the MAST team will provide trainings on land laws to raise awareness of women and men’s legal rights and will work with community institutions to strengthen capacity to implement these laws. The team will also conduct outreach efforts to ensure that mapping and registration processes are participatory. Through MAST, local people will be trained in data collection and verification and the results of mapping activities will be presented to community-wide gatherings for validation and the Ministry of Lands will have the information necessary to issue MAST beneficiaries official Certificates of Customary Right of Occupancy (CCRO).
This innovative and cost-effective approach to formalizing land rights was designed to be adaptable for use in many settings and scaled to provide land services to women and men around the world.