Announcing COLANDEF Research & Facilitation Services
By Nana Ama Yirrah, Executive Director, COLANDEF
We are pleased to announce the official launch of COLANDEF Research & Facilitation Services, a registered affiliate business to COLANDEF Land and Property Rights.
The COLANDEF brand was first registered as a non-governmental, not-for-profit organization in 2004, and for close to two decades, we have demonstrated expertise in land tenure analysis, land policy advocacy, customary land rights documentation, research, and community development.
Recently though, we noticed an accelerating demand for our services in project land acquisition and community level engagements towards large-scale land acquisition for investments. Our work drew attention to the fact that:
1. An important aspect of our focus on customary land rights relates to facilitating communities’ preparedness and making them investor-ready.
2. Facilitating community consultations relating to land-based investments is as important for securing customary land rights as other interventions we deliver to customary land rights holders.
3. Providing capacity strengthening in international best practices to community-level actors provides the opportunity for balancing off the power relations between investors and local communities.
4. Serving as a facilitator in the operationalization of international best practices for responsible investments in the local context can be rewarding for investors and local communities, as well as complement the gains made in our efforts to secure customary land rights.
In summary, there is a business side to the land tenure security interventions we deliver to communities under our grants’ programs.
To delineate the use of funds for our grant programs with local communities as beneficiaries, COLANDEF Research and Facilitation Services was registered as an affiliate company to serve our investor community. No, this is not a different organization. It is a business name registered as required by the Laws of Ghana so that we can undertake land tenure activities on behalf of investors who are interested in executing projects in communities in Ghana.
Dedication to strengthening land tenure security has always been and continues to be our primary focus, and we are grateful to our partners and donors for believing in us and supporting us.
Learn more about COLANDEF Research & Facilitation Services.