Grantees: Tearfund (lead), Congo Initiative, and the Initiative des Femmes Entrepreneurs pour le Développement Durable (IFEDD)
Overview
This project will integrate strategies to mitigate Gender-based violence (GBV) in terrestrial indigenous managed lands of Tanganyika. This project, led by Tearfund with its partners Congo Initiative and IFEDD, will mitigate Gender Based Violence in terrestrial indigenous managed land in Tanganyika province, Democratic Republic of Congo. Communities are equipped and empowered to mitigate the risks of gender-based violence linked to access, use, and stewardship of indigenous-managed forest and land resources by vulnerable groups including indigenous women, women with disabilities, and adolescent girls. It integrates a response to environmental degradation and agro-pastoral conflict with GBV risk mitigation to ensure that all are able to equally benefit from forest and land resources.
Targeted outcome
Community GBV Risk Mitigations Plans are developed and supported and GBV risk mitigation integrated into terrestrial indigenous managed lands governance frameworks.
Planned Reach
Tearfund and its partners will reach 1,500 women in Kalemie and Nyunzu territories through safety measures and community outreach. An additional 20 stakeholders (provincial officials and community leaders) will be trained on integrating GBV risk mitigation into terrestrial indigenous managed lands governance frameworks. Indirectly, the project will reach 9,000 individuals through safer community environments.
Situational background
This project will focus on the territories of Kalemie and Nyunzu, in Tanganyika Province, Democratic Republic of Congo. Tanganyika province is characterised by a strong dependence of indigenous Twa and Bantu communities on indigenous managed lands and forest lands. Women and girls in these locations face high GBV risks due to social norms that perpetuate inequitable access to land and forest resources.
Project Approach
Tearfund’s approach integrates global GBV mitigation best practices adapted for terrestrial indigenous managed lands. We will co-design and implement community-led GBV risk mitigation plans and strengthen the capacity of provincial officials and local leaders to ensure solutions are locally owned and sustainable.
GBV Risk Mitigation Plans will be co-developed with the local community supported by a series of assessments. This includes digital mapping of hot spots, safety audit, and community safety perception mapping to ensure the resulting plans are evidence-based and context-specific.
Provincial officials from the ministries of Environment and Gender as well as local leaders will be trained on GBV risk mitigation, with a focus on integrating protective measures into land and forest land management.
